What To Merit As PLD?

Meh, I'm not the brightest Gallant Surcoat in the box. :(

This is really making me want to tank on my PLD right now..

Current merits (pertaining to PLD):
5/8 hp
2/5 STR
1/8 sword
4/4 crit
3/5 sentinel recast
1/5 chivalry

I'd like to finish hp, STR, sword, sentinel.
Eventually I'd like to have:

4/4 shield
4/4 parrying

4/5 shield bash recast
1/5 rampart recast

1/5 fealty
1/5 iron will
5/5 guardian
3/5 chivalry

G1:
5 Sentinel Recast (You use Sentinel a lot)
5 Rampart Recast (You use Rampart a lot)

G2:
1 Chivalry (Not used much, doesn't matter 10min or 20min)
1 Fealty (May become handy situational)
4 Guardian (Very Important)
4 Iron Will (Very Important)

General:
8/8 Sword
4/4 Shield (Very Important)
4/4 Evasion
4/4 Parry
4/4 Spell Interruption Rate Down (Very Important)

8/8 Healing Magic Skill (not because you gain a few points per heal, high healing magic skill decreases chances of your cure spells to be interrupted, part of spell interruption rate down situation. If you consider yourself a good paladin, you should be using Cure spells both on yourself and others often)

4/4 Enmity+ (If you only play tank jobs, if you have high amount of enmity gear and also playing mage, damage jobs this is not a must)

HP and MP increase amount can be decided according to other jobs you play, 6HP 2MP seems balanced for a paladin.

Attribute MND+5 (Cure potency and resistance) (VIT loses its importance for end game, you already have decent defense rating gear)

170%TP usually gets me all my MP back whether I sub /war or /rdm. As /rdm the extra MND from the sub supplements the sligthly greater MP pool. My current merits are as follows. Anything listed at 0/??? is something I intend to merit.

STR 1/5
3/8 HP
Sword 8/8
Shield 4/4
Enmity+ 4/4 (4% more enmity isn't going to kill my BLU. Also BLU tanks)
Crit hit+ 2/4
0/5 Shield Bash
1/5 Sentinel
5/5 Chivalry (I spend a lot of time as /rdm)
1/5 Fealty (will fully merit in time)

STR2/5(cap eventually...)
HP4/8(will cap)
Sword8/8(if i was pld only)
Shield4/4
Enmity4/4
Crit4/4(DD jobs)
ShieldBash5/5
Sentinel5/5
Fealty5/5
Chivalry5/5

I wouldn't consider PLD when doing your Attributes.

Group 1:

5/5 Sentinel recast
5/5 Rampart recast

Group 2:

1/5 Fealty
5/5 Chivalry
4/5 Iron Will

HP/MP:
HP 4/8
MP 4/8

Combat:

8/8 Sword
4/4 Shield

Other:

4/4 Spell Interruption down
4/4 Critical hit rate


The likely gray area is Guardian/Iron Will. I prefer Iron Will, as it adds more utility to Rampart, rather than enhance an already defensively strong JA like Sentinel. One merit into Fealty because it's a free Citadel Buster (nerfs non-elemental magic damage), and comes in handy if you know if you're fighting an enemy with a specific debuff pattern.

I don't have enmity merits because I have other jobs they would hinder, and it's only +4%, not a big deal. Combat merits should be obvious. HP/MP is even because I have mage jobs. Elvaan and Galkan PLDs could probably live without HP merits and dump all 8 into MP. Conversely, Taru PLDs would be well served to put all 8 into HP rather than increase their already substantial MP pool.

I considered meritting Cover length but my lack of a Valor Surcoat compounded with never having the DDs who pull hate in my party led me away from it.

If you have exceptional support in your linkshell (like a relic bard), you could probably drop 4 of the Chivalry merits and put them in Guardian. I'm not in a situation where MP is in infinite supply, so I capped it, and it serves me very well.

I just asked a pld on my server what he did.

Shield bash
sentinel recast
5/5
Guardian
Chivalry
5/5


that is what he told me

I've done:

Chivalry maxed

Enmity maxed

Need to max atm:

Enemy Crit Rate

Shield

Parry

Sentinel

Bash

Either 6/2 hp/mp or 8/0 Around there.

As a mage main, I can't merit enmity, but my PLD merits are as follows:

5/5 Sentinel (Coupled with Valor leggings+1 and maxed Guardian)
3/5 Rampart (putting another two here to couple with Iron Will)
5/5 Guardian
3/5 Iron Will
1/5 Fealty
1/5 Chivalry

Somewhat related question: Once my pld is 75, how do I get merits? I mean, do any merit pts invite pld anymore, or should I start leveling sam or brd now?

You'll be hard pressed to find a merit party that will invite a paladin with their flag up. You're better off just sitting in campaign for hours and hours on end, or leveling a job that gets merit invites fast, like RDM, BRD, NIN, WAR, etc.

Thankfully I have both RDM and BRD 75, so I can get merit invites on those :/ I wish PLD would get invites for merits, though.

Does Nin get much (more) love in Merit pts? I'll have it to 75 around the same time, so that may be a viable option.

no it really doesnt
good note about ALOT of campaigning on PLD is u also get your points to get 5/5 IR Set

to merit right now everyday without alot of LFG best jobs would be SAM BRD COR RDM imo. Can add WAR if going Mamool Ja.

Bah, all of this makes me cry. I've been soloing nin in campaign to get my IR gear. I'm looking forward to getting it in order to not use it in pts lol.

Since the level cap is going to be raised soon i would also suggest that u make sure all 75 jobs exp is capped. since i heard about raised lvl cap i have been on exp instead of merit points constantly. So my advice is make sure ur capped on exp before meriting, so when update comes out u can say <Ding 76____>

Unless your gear is really basic 5/5 Iron Ram is sort of redundant. Askar feet and Coral everything else are better for MDT, and only the legs/body are really worth getting for +Enmity (and I only use the Hauberk on JAs that aren't Rampart, Nuevo for spells and Rampart).

That said, yes. The only way you're getting merits on PLD is either via Campaign or level syncing. NIN will be the same way.

IR Head: Solid enmity head until Bahamut's Mask, okay MDT piece.
IR Body: Great enmity body. Definitely get this unless you have a Hydrabert.
IR Hands: Solid enmity hands; get.
IR Legs: Solid enmity legs; get.
IR Feet: Solid enmity feet; get.

Cures would still be better in IR Body+, as would Atonement. Since these are both huge sources of enmity, I would say it's quite important.

I said if your gear is basic, but there's plenty better is most places.

Head: Bahamut's Mask. Granted, not the easiest to get. Fair enough.

Body: Like I said, JAs (including Atonement). I much prefer using my Nuevo for Flash/Reprisal/other spells. I can make up the enmity elsewhere. I do use the Hauberk for cure cheats though.

Hands: Askar hands have the same enmity and haste. Homam hands have more haste, accuracy, and one less enmity than Askar. Hydra hands also have 4 enmity.

Legs: Worthwhile.

Feet: Askar have 2 enmity, and may or may not be easier to get. They're also the best feet for damage reduction. I suppose part of my bias against these is that I see far too many PLDs idling in them instead of haste feet or your infinitely better Gallant Leggings.

You should be using the IR set in a MagicDmg set, eg for Citadel Buster. The only visible gear that you should have with MDT is IR Lance

MDT is better than MDB until you hit the MDT cap (50%). Full Coral+1 > Full Iron Ram.

Full Merman Set up + IR Lance + Capped Shellra V gets you to 50%, leaving the rest to be filled with MDB.



I like the augment on my LK, but LK+1 usually better, and some people prefer Moon Amulet over ritter for CB

I use a Ritter Gorget for CB. 11 Light Resist isn't really going to do anything for you. >_>

Also not in a position where I ever get capped Shellra V (or Shellra V at all for that matter...), so I just carry Coral+1 and Merman's on me. Half the problem is probably that I can't be bothered to Campaign enough to get the rest of the set. Coral set also works on my RDM, so it saves me space.

I think Iron will is vastly superior to Guardian. When Pld/Nin tanking half the goal is to switch hate between the 2 tanks and if both have maxed hate it usually goes to the last person to flash making it very easy and simple to control hate when someone loses shadows.

The application for Iron will is that you will have a relatively uninterrupted cast for Ichi. This lets you cover one ichi casting with sentinel, one ichi cast with rampart, and one ichi cast with reprisal. With reduced sent/rampart merits and counting shadows you should be able to cover all your ichi casting in some form or another.

enm- merits

gogo

I capped fealty and i love it. Pretty much immune to all enfeebles and if u have flawless ribbon just that much better. And if i remember correctly it even resists am.

No it does not effect Ancient magic. It effects special forms of magical damage such as Meteor and Astral Flow.

VIT isn't completely useless, it all depends on your style of play.

I have 3/5 VIT, and I can see the difference in that damage reduced in Rampart by at LEAST 25 damage. It may not seem much, but think back on all the times you survived a -ga or GoH by only 25 points or less lol.

Helps in damage reducing despite the soft cap, and plus you heal yourself for more HP, which means more hate from cures.

STR is good, but since PLD now has Atonement, you really don't need it all that much; Unless you're Vorpal Blading your heart out in "All Enemies" floors of Nyzul, or farming mobs that don't live for more than a minute.

Anyway my setup is as fllowed:
8/8 Sword
4/4 Shield
4/4 Evasion (More useful than it seems lol)

8/8 Divine

3/5 VIT
2/5 STR

4/4 Enmity+
4/4 Crit+4

HP 5/8
MP 3/8

5/5 Sentinel
5/5 Rampart
5/5 Chivalry
5/5 Guardian

3 x 2 = 6.

Placebo!

Wow I'm surprised to see so many people merit Rampart. So many things are stunnable I think Shield Bash is much better bang for your buck. :|

My PLD merits look like this:

8 HP
8 Sword
4 Shield
4 Enmity
5 Shield Bash
5 Sentinel
5 Chivalry
4 Guardian
1 Fealty

Honestly I couldn't live without Chivalry, we low man things a lot and the extra mp can really help. Of course having a Chivalry gear swap helps immensely too. I can kinda see the reason people would argue for Iron Will/Rampart. I think with proper shield gear, reprisal, and sentinel if ***hits the fan, it's not really necessary. I'm very rarely hit so quickly that I can't keep my timers up. If you're using it as a spell interruption tool for 1 Ichi, a Shield Bash could serve that purpose on most things also. I guess at the end of the day whatever gets the job done for you is fine.

The way I see it, if you fight Tiamat regularly, Rampart is your friend. You can pop Rampart on Fly, Sentinel on Touchdown. Can also use Sent > Rampart > Cure4 > Flash and be pretty damn good on hate.

I save Shield Bash for when something needs to be stunned. And yes, this is a sweet JA, don't get me wrong, but I don't really find myself waiting for Shield Bash to come back up. I guess unless you're fighting something that needs a lot of Stuns, but that's why I invented support.

Guardian seems meh to me, since it only reduces the enmity you lose from taking damage or shadows, and you shouldn't be taking to much damage while Sentinel is activated. Not useless at all, but Fealty is just to fun to play with. RDM mobs in Dyna...well it's late and i can't think of where else I use it to much...but I do.

I did this:

4/4 Shield
4/4 ENM+
4/4 Crit
5/5 Rampart
5/5 Sentinel
5/5 Fealty
5/5 Chivalry