PLD MDB/MDT- Vs Ultima

If you can grab some Light + resist (aside from full IR), a carol before CB will give you a great resist rate. Otherwise -DMG is the better option.

It will just use it as soon as it's unstunned. It can only be delayed by stunning, not prevented.

The MDB set looks fine, if you have rampart you can pop it off too and take like no damage at all. The real issue with ultima is support/hate after he cb's, having flash or another hate gaining ability up to try and control it after is a good idea from what I've seen. Setting up with the right jobs is important too, cor + shell5 + mdt set will make you very hard to one shot.

-Watch out for random holy2's killing people, have blink or shadows up lol

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for their help with this =) It's good to know I had the right sort of setup picked out (I know it's generally not that hard to do, but I just wanted to make sure I hadn't missed something big!)

Secondly, in terms of support, these are the PT's that are being planned:

Tank PT -
PLD/NIN
PLD/NIN
WHM (Capped Shellra V Merits)
RDM/WHM
COR
BLU


PT #2 -
BLM
BLM
RDM/DRK
SMN(?)


PT #3 -
BRD
SAM
SMN
WHM
BLU


Would that sort of support be suitable for the most part? The RDM/WHM in tank PT is to get 2 erases off at the same time for Chemical Bomb.

I've mentioned the BLU's using Saline Coat in the Tank PT to the LS.


A question on Coral VS I.R. gear: I noticed on the first page, Dasva made a comment on using Coral gear & Lieutenant's Sash, how would these do against I.R. gear? I originally planned using the full set of Coral/Merman gear before I scrapped it because I had heard I.R. was generally better (I personally haven't really looked into it due to not being a PLD).

I didn't really specify in my OP, but I'm making these "preperations" for the PLD's in my Limbus LS so they have a better idea of what sort of gear to be looking at (just to be sure we have the best chance of winning!).

Once again, I'd like to thank everyone for their input, it's been a very good read ^^

MDT will be better. Just gear up to the 23% mark on mdt and fill in with mdb where you can, along with hp and I guess light resist.

If you can hit the 50% MDT- cap, then load up on HP and MDB in the rest of the slots. With two mermans rings, an IR lance, the earrings, and capped shellra 5, you should be good to load up on IR gear in the rest of the slots.

For each BLU with a Diffusion merit, they'll probably only be able to do it once for the whole fight, however, it'd still be good to toss a BLU in tank party (as you have) for Diamondhide on the main tank and to give COR the extra Magus Roll boost. Saline Coat takes about 3 seconds to cast, so starting it around the 15-20 countdown should give the BLU enough time to run away.

Also make sure that the COR should has Snake Eye and or Fold ready for when Ultima is close to 20% to land a good Magus Roll on the PLD. With a bad roll, it could only be +11 MDB, however, if you work the numbers right, you can get +20~ MDB easy. All of Iron Ram put together is 17 MDB, so it's like adding another full set of Iron Ram on and then some.

Fealty also greatly reduces the damage of 1 CB. Plan accordingly with BLU so they don't get used on the same one. So all in all, you'd have 1 Fealty for a super weak CB. Then Saline Coat to greatly reduce another.

EDIT: There is one downside to your party formation though, lacking a BRD in the tank party for 20%+ can suck since Marches are so sexy. I'd suggest putting BRD in the tank party instead of COR and make everyone stop fighting around 20%. Then you can swap those two people so that COR can be useful for Citadel Busters. Since SMN is in the current BRD party, they'll get that nice +1 boost from Evoker's Roll anyway.

You cant hit the light resist for Ultima like you can with KS99. Your best bet is to gear for 23-26% MDT. 23% if your whm has capped Shellra 5 or 26% if they have shell 4 or 1 into shellra 5. After you hit the 50% MDT cap, then add MDB gear. You can hit the cap very cheaply with AH gear. NQ coral gear an iron ram lance, and a resentment cape.

One of the best peices you can get for anything in sea is a Resentment cape since almost every NM is heavy on magic damage. -5% MDT in areas outside of nations control and +2 enmity. You are always outside nations control in Sea cause its always owned by Jeuno. Its a Rare/ex peice that drops from a 21-24h tonberry in front of the ugly ppl temple. Soloable by most jobs... just bring TH.

As elvaan with 23% MDT then maxing MDB in all other slots with Shellra 5 and light carol, CB never kills me or my co-tank.

No I mostly meant <25%. >25% it seems mostly like a normal mob. Albeit one that is really accurate, hits like a truck, and has changing dmg resistance. <25% we still straight tank it. We just spread the tanks out and watch it walk back and forth between them. Well we take it down to <10% first so incase something really weird and bad happens we can kill fast. (tanks have been know sometimes to half fall asleep and take hits or people not pull pods fast enough).

If we do absolutely no tp giving moves after last tp move we wont get one. If we do a several right away after it will do one a bit later. If we wait a long time and then do 1-2 it will tp right away.

Not true. If that happens you stunned too early. Timing is a *** though. Took me 2 tries (ie 1 too many) to get it down. Oh and if anyone wondering yes that is me as rdm/drk weaponbashing... think manascreen was still up so meh.

/blu is ok, but no... /dnc is really a waste of time imo. I use sattva yes, why? because i only have 1 DD job which i leveled for zerg. Although now i am considering war since i feel like i don't use ridill to its fullest

ive stunned it b4 with shield bash while other PLD had hate prior
ive also seen a mage run outa range of it that took hate

so nice to see
1!!!!
<name> is out of range.

i use this set


personally i could use another mermans earring but i love the 3% mp return u get off CB when it hits from 800-1200

depending on how many u have to live thro, like last ultima i took 6 CBs lol

Again, knocking a subjob without even having it levelled.
Don't use ridill on war. Use A Perdu or the new OAT GAxe. Use Rajas on pld. It isn't 2007 anymore.

I've stacked -20%~ damage to both types and still get one shotted while an adaman body pld lives with 200 hp...SE loves their cat fetish mithra over humes I guess.

Ridill WAR is still incredibly strong in any situation you are forced to /nin - just eat sushi or optimally, Pizza.

Cats are ftw.

i could be wrong, but doesn't it require both sword and axe merits to be effective?

i understand that a ridill war can do very well, but it seems extreme to use up 16 combat merits on one situational subjob

They certainly help, but as long as you're capping accuracy then it's still gonna decimate. It's just so hard for anything else to keep up with the attack frequency (only Hasso is competitive and this is why gaxe /sam > ridill /nin).

ridill war is fine with only sword merits, or even with no merits, on weaker targets

drk is a better ultima tank than paladin, bringing 18 people is a waste of 2 temenos chips you could farm with leftovers, etc

I could definitely be overlooking stuffs as a math nub but ffxi calc gives ridill a 79.7% hitrate on a level 82 mob with 337 evasion(G. Colib)

with 76 (mithra +1 Dex merit)

eating marinara pizza

with 38 gear acc and 30 gear dex coming from

Byakko's
ebody
Rajas
Utathalam's
swift belt
PCC
fire bomblet


rampaging in
Hecatomb Cap
Peacock Charm
Adaman Hauberk
Hecatomb Subligar
Hecatomb Mittens
Hecatomb leggings
Virtuoso Belt

I've never been able to achieve appreciable damage with this setup on anything higher than nyzul isle

if you have any ideas to make man/ridill workable without merits i would appreciate them

Ridill/Joy/---/Bomblet
Turban/PCC/Suppa/Brutal (?)
Haubyline/Dusk/Toreador's/Rajas
Cuchulain's/Swift/Haidate/Aurum or Dusk+1

Should be good. If you can't get capped accuracy in that, eat Sushi (note this may allow for Blitz/Dusk+1 over Toreador's/Aurum) - even with sushi, the frequency is just obscene.

Oh, and yeah I would expect Joy to outdamage Maneater over time assuming there is no large accuracy difference between them. If there still is, use Man.

Pretty sure sword chucks did more than maneater/ridill in parse

Don't forget X-Hit builds in why /sam+GAxe > Ridill+/nin, Raen

That sorta depends on the amount of haste really. I'm sure someone has the full math on it all from dps to ws frequency and dmg maxiumizing food and such. But /sam wont pull ahead in low haste situations on merit lvl mobs.

i don't think he's saying that man/ridill or swordchucks will beat out /sam in high situations

i think he's saying that maneater/ridill will perform very well against GA assuming both subjobs are /nin

Recently Im about to get a set to reduce (M)agic (D)amage (T)aken for my PLD; mainly for tanking JoL and in the future tanking Proto-Ultima (Citadel Buster). I spend hours of reading different forums to get the knowledge I have now ^^. So I decided to write a "guide" to save my fellow PLD's some time. ;)


The main aim for a MDT set is to reach the -50% MDT cap.
After you reached the cap you may want to focus on (M)agic (D)efense (B)onus to reduce damage taken even more.

Shellra V with only one merit will give you -24% MDT, while Shellra V fully merited will give you -27%MDT.
So you have to fill the gap to -50% MDT; thats 26% with one merit, 23% with fully merited Shellra V.

I want to present you a set for PLD on budget (like me ^^):


Main:
Iron Ram Lance (-10% damage taken, 10HP and MP) - 30K or 20k allied notes, -10% is a really nice amount to reach the cap, HP and MP helps always.

Sub:
Raptor Leather Strap +1 (HP+15, MP+10, MND+2) - 18k, mainly for HP to reduce enmity loss when taking dmg and some extra MP.

Range:
Lamian Kaman (MDB+1, MP+10) - 9k, cheap MDB and some MP.

Head:
Iron Ram Sallet (enm +5, HP+20, MDB+3) - for free (in exchange for 40k allied notes), nice amount of enm. as well as HP and MDB. A really good all around piece!

Neck:
Parade Gorget (refresh 1MP/tick) - for free (NM drop), refresh helps to keep your MP high.

Ear1:
Coral Earring (MDT -1%) - 9k, 11%

Ear2:
Coral Earring (MDT -1%) - 9k, 12%

Body:
Coral Scale Mail (MDT-3%) - 55k, 3% that puts you to 15%.

Hands:
Iron Ram Dastanas (HP+20, enm. +4, MDB+2) - for free (40k allied notes), HP, enm. and MDB really nice!

Ring1:
Merman's Ring (MDT -4%) - 180k, not that cheap, puts you to 19%.

Ring2:
Merman's Ring (MDT -4%) - 180k ... 23%

Back:
Lamia Mantle +1 (MP+26, MDB+4) - 50k, MP and 4 MDB!

Waist:
Resolute Belt (MDB+2) - 170k

Legs:
Iron Ram Hose (HP+28, enm.+4, MDB+4) - for free (50k allied notes), has almost everything a PLD wants. :)

Feet:
Iron Ram Greaves (HP+19, enm.+3, MDB+3) - for free (50k allied notes), see above ^^


Set summary:

HP+ 112
MP+ 56
magic damage taken -23%
magic defense bonus +19
enmity +18

--------------------------
for a total of 710k

So you have a solid Magic Defense set for a fair amount of gil.


Things you may want to update to make this set better/ reach the cap for Shellra V with only 1 merit:

Sub: Shark Strap (HP+10, enm. +3) - 400k, more enm. for better hate managment

range: Lamian Kaman+1 (MP+12, MDB+2) - 900k, 2 more MP, 1 more MDB you have to decide if its worth the gil ;)

Earrings: Mermans Earringx2 (MDT-2%) - 330k, -2% more MDT to reach the cap for Shellra V with 1 merit.

Body: Avalon Breastplate (Vit+7, Acc.+13, enm. +3, MDT-5%) - 3,2-4M really worth the gil even though you look like a crab ^^

Back: Resentment Cape (enm. +2, MDT-5%) - not easy to get 21h spawn NM. Will work in Sea for JoL and Ultima

Waist: Lieutenant's Sash (HP+15, MP+15, MDT-2%) - 56k ISP First Lieutenant Rank required


Im sure there is other stuff out there that will benefit you too like Odin drops, or Defending Ring, but they are not easy to get.
With these updates you are able to switch out rings or earrings for more useful stuff like Cassie Earring, Hades Earring+1, BBQ ring, Sattva ring ect.

I hope this guide will help everybody, who is looking for a cheap MDT set. Remember thats only my Opinion; others may have different thoughts.

/Ati



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Copy and Paste the "guide" I wrote long time ago :)

for events like ein, the Dot from ridill is better. GA wars for other things, i completely agree. I don't have the subjobs by choice, I use /rdm for campaign, some of the new vnm, and for fun. i think /dnc makes a pld sloppy, but apparently judging by your gears sets at least. You only gear for the band wagon. :D

and rajas for pld? its ok, but tanking heavier NM's i wouldn't use it, I'd stack as much enmity in idle and for atonement. and then swap out the other rings for spells.

Indeed there are times when it really is best for war to /nin. At which point a swd chuck will pretty much always outdot a GA war with same gear and sub unless it is a high def mob. And really rajas? If it doesn't knock a hit off you getting 100% or stop you hitting for 0 who cares. Get an acc ring. Or emnity. Those will do more for your tanking and atonement

There's a reason some gear is considered bandwagon. I'm sure all of those Hagun using sams only use it because they look cool right? They're just hopping on the band wagon. Why are you idling in enmity exactly? And as for my 'bandwagon' gear, feel free to offer any criticism you have. That's the whole reason I've even got sets made, so I can point people more knowledgeable about the game to them and ask for tips to improve.
Rajas + Joytoy does knock a hit off for Atonement build. That's kind of the whole reason to use it. My 2nd tp ring is either a blitz or a toreador, depending on the situation. Again, there's absolutely no reason to idle in enmity.