~First And Final Line Of Defense V2.0~

Not sure if anyone posted it, but Adapa Shield Reprisal does indeed add +75 Shield Skill.

Just to note, All this discussion about DD's having capped PDT in their DPS sets is completely ignoring the fact they **wont** have PDT capped in their WS sets, and bosses will be doing phys AoE moves on your DDs in plenty enough cases.

But doesnt change the fact your Ochain afterglow is gonna be overriden by other afterglows anyways.

But if you're in a group using mostly non mythic afterglows, I can see the appeal. Having that slight edge to lower AoE dmg taken by your DDs if they get AoE'd mid WS gear swap is a thing and its not like it hurts, but its such a small thing to measure *** over.

As for best non-REMA sword option for paladin, I would recommend the following upgrade path to work your way towards end game tier so you can get your REMA.

1. Ochain first, its free and will make getting the stuff listed below a billion times easier. Farm your Ochain up on any other job. Just do it. You should not bother with paladin until you've done this mandatory step. You only need to i95 Ochain, you dont need to spent a single penny after that.

2. Demersel Degen +1, this is an excellent entry level sword to basically make your paladin capable of doing anything, and once you have Ochain Bakunawa becomes a stupid easy fight.

3. Tanmogayi +1, Sarama is a moderately tuff fight and you definitely need to take the time to gear up, and Demersel Degen would have helped with that. This sword is quite stellar and will get you quite far in the game.

3.5: Another potential option, Im not sure how it compares, is Kaja sword from Ambuscade. You are gonna need to make it anyways for Step 4, but I dont know which is stronger, Kaja vs Tanmogayi, but my gut says Tanmo wins by a decent bit eyeballing it.

4. Naegling, upgrade that kaja sword. I would consider the hunt to get a Shiny to be way less effort than a REMA, and Naegling is only just a little bit short of the REMA tier weapons. Its not the best but goddamn does it get close. This sword is honestly a completely respectable stopping point if you want to now devote a lot of time and energy into your armor. I would not recommend spending any money or energy on a REMA sword until you have made Aegis and have all your top end armor and accessories.

5. Ok now you can make a REMA, I personally like Excalibur, a lot of people often scoff at its aftermath but I consider it to be quite powerful. Moralltach Path C is also incredibly powerful, a lot of people dont realize that the Cure Pot+25 is a BIG deal, and 200 hp is a ***tonne. HP directly correlates to less enmity lost when hit.

Burtgang of course is tanky as *** and has very high DPS, but I actually think Moralltach will net you better enmity control in many situations simply by having a lot more enmity and being able to cap cure potency easier, which means more enmity gear in your cure set, which translates to ***tonnes more enmity generation. If you break it down I believe last I checked, a Moralltach cure set will have basically the same enmity as a Burtgang cure set.

Finally you have Empy and Aeonic, I know Aeonic is absolutely the best in slot sword for Savage Blade spam strats, which when combined with Ochain can actually make you extremely competitive with the DDs for DPS on certain content (One of the best feelings in the world as a paladin is pulling in a hot 25% of the DPS on a hundred fists or quadruple attack based enemy)

Basically, at Master tier you get ***tonnes of TP from blocking enemies that spam attacks, and on some fights Ive had cases where I was right back up to ~1700 TP before I even finished my savage blade animation, so being able to straight up spam ~20K savage blades makes keeping hate a *** breeze on those fights.

So in those situations, I can absolutely see without a doubt Sequence being hands down the best "tanking" sword for paladin there, and those situations come up often enough (especially in ambuscade) for it to be worth it.

Leaving the Empy weapon. I have zero experience with Almace, I have no idea how it compares to Sequence

I wholeheartedly disagree with this. IMO Aegis will benefit a PLD on tremendous levels in group events rather than Ochain. The MDT on it is just too good to pass up on and should be a priority. I think this was a large discussion back quite a few pages.

Also, lvl 90 Ochain is only needed.

Sinister Reign is an alternative time sink for a capped or near capped Brilliance, which is a Wal-Mart Burtgang. Atonement's update makes it a far superior option of TP use VS Savage Blade, especially on higher end content. If you're not making Burtgang or will be, Cap/Near Cap Brilliance is your best option compared to these other Non Ultimates.

Farm some volte (feet, legs, head) and build a meva tanking set. Makes mdt from Aegis irrelevant almost and blocks debuffs on top of that. Its also better offensively. This stigma that PLD cant build meva and needs Aegis is pretty funny in 2020.

Farming multiple pieces of Volte is harder than getting an Aegis. There's a sizeable amount of stuff with enough MACC to just ignore the MEVA of a Volte wearing PLD.

This is very true. It took me months to get 4 pieces of volte from windy and luckily I got the head/hands/legs/feet (as sacro breastplate is better than volte body imo). I was also with a good Dyna group where we'd be able to clear all of W1, W2, and even had some time left over for some W3 fomor kills. I was also lucky in that not many other players wanted the volte set.

I've been trying for years with a good group that full clears windy, and is even willing to mostly focus on windy for me. I still don't have volte legs/feet. Aegis is many, many times more accessible.

Can you really stop Ochain at 90? Currently farming HMP gil for my Masamune and to call it a slog is putting it lightly - would love to not have to do this again!

As you can see, it's 5 VIT and 10% more MP returned from a block.
Virtually nothing.

The MP from block is also calculated after all other damage reductions, which means you're actually almost never getting MP back because you're getting hit for close to 0 with a Phalanx set anyway.

Which is real annoying.

Just click off Phalanx if you need MP. MP can be an issue quickly now. Ochain and other MP converting pieces are handy.

I wish the MP conversion on Ochain was more like Aspir Samba in that it just drains MP upon successful block instead. Taking zero damage makes Ochain pretty dull since it's already very easy to take no damage on mid tier content even without blocking any attacks thanks to burtgang and phalanx. I really do miss getting a ton of MP back using Ochain before I got my PLD properly geared up, lol.

This post is perhaps a bit premature, as I've only completed a single test sample on the subject, but I'm stuck here at work and can't gather anymore data, sooo...

So, some questions came up post update about block dmg reduction(henceforth BDR in this post) as the increased def values should have had many ilvl shields hitting 100% dmg reduction on block. A very brief test showed that this wasn't the case using Srivatsa. Blocked hits still dealt dmg, so not 100%

A bit of review.

Under the known block dmg formula. (shieldDEF/2)+ShieldSizeBase+ShiedlDefBonus

Pre-update Srivatsa 75/2=37.5+55+6= 98.5% reduction.
Post-update Srivatsa 150/2=75+55+6= 136% reduction.

So Srivatsa should have been vastly overcapped.

But if they aren't hitting 100%, where exactly does the BDR land and why? It seems possible that there was always a cap on BDR that we simply never reached on any of the shields tested. (btw, I never tested Srivatsa BDR pre update, so it is not confirmed that it actually had the expected 98.5% BDR even then. This makes it difficult to say if there was a cap at the time.)

Alternatively, SE may have adjusted the DEF to BDR ratio to account for the greatly increased DEF on ilvl shields. I can only hope they limited this change to ilvl shield as it would wreck havoc on Aegis and Ochain if it was global.


So, I gathered some Srivatsa BDR data last night until the maint booted me. While I don't consider this test absolutely accurate(high base dmg would help the accuracy, and there's a few other things that bother me) it should be pretty damn close with a sample size of nearly 5k hits.

Comparing the avg blocked hit to avg unblocked, I currently have Srivatsa BDR at 78.7%. This is lower than Aegis pre-update(81%) And lower than Priwen preupdate(88.5%)(I did test Priwen preupdate. And the results were extremely close to the expected value based on the formula.)

Since values higher than the current Srivatsa have been seen in the past, this suggest to me that we're not hitting any sort of preexisting BDR cap. A new cap is... possible, but that's an odd number for it. Unless it's actually 80%. but the sample size should have been sufficient to prevent that much variance.

It seems more likely to me that the DEF to BDR ratio has changed for ilvl shields. (and I hope it's only for ilvl ones)

Basically I need to do a lot more testing to find the answer to the questions here. Need to test other ilvl shields with different def values, non ilvl shield to see if they changed too, non 119 ilvl shield to see if the def:BDR change scales with ilvl, and so on.

I'll get into the implications of this change once I have more data on how it is affecting other shields.

You need 3 accounts to enter and probably 2 to clear all NMs in wave 2 (its probably possible with one account too, but could be hard I guess). You only need head/feet/legs, since Sacro and macabre gauntlets r15 are as good or better. I did maybe 20 runa in 3 months and got 5 volte. 3x feet and 2x head, so I was a little unlucky.

Its not that hard if you are willing to commit to farm it.
Aegis can be more accessible, but its only mdt. It wont block debuffs etc.

This is the set:
ItemSet 371361

You are assuming that a new paladin has access to 3 accounts that are capable of killing all the Wave 2 NMs AND is willing to spend months for it.

I have no words.

This. It’s pretty dumb to suggest farming Volte to trivialize Aegis. Even more dumb to suggest using 3 accounts lol.

Do I need to update the DPS spreadsheet with new Atonement values? How did I miss this?!

Ill go check in on it, but I didnt know atonement got changed!

Edit: Is the BG Wiki page not up to date? Its still stating that Atonement wont do more than 1190 damage?

That is basically nothing compared to Savage Blade, so Im hoping that is out of date?

good luck to you on that sir/madam/person. every goddamned time I say that to myself, there I am grinding all over again for some weapon. I have been "done" with Empyreans 2-3 times now, but here I am getting the 10k Boulders to upgrade Masa.

The atonement thing is just in terms of enmity gained vs the enmity via dmg of SB, its dmg hasnt changed at all

Martel already did the calcs, it was never about damage dealt, its more about the hate generation of atonement vs savage blade. For example to hold hate using savage your wsd would have to be in the 40~k+ range to justify using it over atonement, and the data is skewed even farther to atonement with R15 Burtgang.

Keep in mind that the quoted post excludes Burtgang's enmity+ AND was posted before I tested the effects of Burtgang's Augment. These are both significant factors in comparing Atonement to damage based WS for enmity gain.

Id be curious to see if anyone has created a hybrid set for atonement that tries to min/max its enmity generation without losing much life

Being able to effectively pop off a Flash every couple seconds without ping-ponging my HP sounds like exactly what I need for single target tanking.

Thats the big thing that matters. Sure you can pull off a 27~33K savage blade, absolutely.

But you're gonna be losing like 1k~1.2K life and ping pong like crazy everytime you do it.

So I can absolutely see the value in generating comparable fat enmity without losing any life to do it.

Atonement's dmg is no longer relevant to it's enmity generation so you don't have to gear for WSD anymore. This means Atonement pretty much just uses a high HP enmity set with Fotia belt(neck isn't worth it vs Moonlight) and moonshade with TP bonus.

3k HP, +144 enmity w/ crusade, capped PDT.
ItemSet 371486
Also, Atonement with R15 Burtgang is way stronger than Flash.

Base 300 CE yes, but the R15 augment pushes that up to 600CE. And this can rise as high as 900CE at 3k TP. Any TP overflow from AM3 feeds into more enmity. And then you throw enmity+ gear at it.

This particular set is +144 enmity. so you'd be looking at 1,464CE/4,392VE at 1k TP even to 2,196CE/6588VE at 3k TP. Oh, and I forgot to factor moonshade TPbonus into that, but you get the idea. (hmm, 1,647CE/4,941VE at 1k TP even and moonshade?) EDIT: Oh, I forgot to apply fotia belt too. Well, just keep in mind that these number are not perfectly accurate, and that realistic values would be a bit higher. Need Sleeeep.

So, after reviewing a bunch of the new gear available and doing some min maxing on the DPS spreadsheet, this is feeling to me like the new optimized hybrid set.

ItemSet 359870

Thoughts? 15% haste on Gazu Bracelets is insane and it has some very solid accuracy on it.

The massive amount of haste on it lets us make use of Hjarrandi gear which is pretty juicy.

Compared to the old min maxed hybrid set this new version nets about +150 hp and about 4% faster TP rate or so. Very nice!

Also I didnt math it out but Im pretty sure it has better Meva too.

Well, I had to look at it more than a few times just to make sure, but... PLD can't wear Gazu bracelets.

LV 99 MNK WHM BLM RDM THF DRK BRD RNG SMN BLU COR PUP DNC SCH GEO RUN

That's a long list, but PLD ain't in it.

To be honest I really need to look into a AM3 up and down set, cause right now i'm just living in a single STP heavy hybrid set. This is what I currently am using:
ItemSet 369859
Path B on the Hands (65HP/12DEX/20ACC)
Cape is 20DEX/30ACC/20ATT/STP10/Block+5

Although a few changes for multihit for sure I see are that sailfi belt+1 and make a DA cape.

Rather than just keep editing my last post, I was looking into Emicho Haubert, hose, and gambieras. If your not trying too hard to stay near 3k (my above set is like 3040 hp without food) then Emicho body path B is a good pair to the hands. You lose 100 hp going out of odin body, but you get 5 DA + set bonus DA. I have Souveran in legs/feet because of the massive hp and cure received capped between those two, however you could change them out but I don't want my hybrid set to be 2600 hp. Yet another reason I was trying to fit in Srivatsa (+150 hp).

Welp, RIP my dreams lol.