Hooray for Merits! What should I focus on?Follow

good merit discussion

Personally, I maxed Chivalry first, I felt it was that useful, and it was nice to get that huge of a chunk out of the way at the beginning.

Your point about the Other category to assist in your levelling nin is a good one though. Maxing enmity and crit merits will definitely assist in levelling your nin, as well as capped parry and eva for a very long time (my parry uncapped at nin62)

Please do not take offense to my next statement, it is meant only to be constructive, not offensive or insulting. I'm just tired, and there isn't really a soft cushy way to phrase this

Stop xp'ing, and go farm (alternately, solo stuff that gives xp and money, so you can still make some progress on those merits). Yes, I saw what you said about 55-72, but pld's not exactly a meriting machine, and what's the point of taking a job to 75 if you're not going to gear it right?



You didn't mention back. Amemet +1. Then, when you can afford it, both Cerberus, and Gigant. Could also try camping a resentment cape. NCCoda's sticky has pretty much everything in it as well.

Noticed you haven't gone to the past. Campaign's a great tool, and the IR set is free, and, coincidentally, pld's one of the best campaign jobs. Getting CoP done should be your first priority though. Good luck, hope this helped.

Cerberus is one of those "I'll upgrade it when everything else is upgraded" pieces. It's helpful to upgrade, but not essential. Get to it as soon as you can, but you don't need to rush.

/NIN is an absolute must unless you can find shells still doing PLD/WAR everywhere. They still exist. You're actually set for end game now. Any IR gear you can get from Sandy [S] will really help, plus, it's FREE. It rivals AF and AF2 in terms of effectiveness and is a great place to get a good "visible" end game set.

You can start tanking effectively as PLD right off the bat at 75. I did - I actually started at 74. The more subjobs you have available (WAR, NIN, RDM), the better off you'll be. The more merits you have, the better off you'll be. The more enmity gear you have, the better off you'll be. The more MDT/MDB gear you have, the better off you'll be. But, you don't need ANY of that to get started. Make friends, go out, be the "off-tank" for a little while just to see what's up. And, if you get thrown to the jackals, grit your teeth and show them the best PLD they've every seen.

cwellthor's gear advice is fairly spot on, and all of his gear upgrades are solid choices.

For the ranged slot, you do have other options. Depending on your race, the RSE sachet could be an option (though, minimally...) and it's free! Outside of that, and the Smart Grenade (hai2u, +4 attack!) you might want to consider a Lamian Kaman as well. The NQ will cost about 20k (on most servers) and it's 10 free mp and 1 MDB in a neglected slot. It's not groundbreaking, but you'll want one for endgame and- unless skilling up on crabs- it'll do more for you than the Bibiki Seashell will ^^

Pretty much whatever daisypaladin said......

And do the opposite.

Chiv x1
Fealty x1
Guardian x1
Shield x4(Max)
Sent (Max)
HP (Max)
Enm (Max)
Sword (Max)
Rampart(Max)

Then add to chiv and others as needed. I put Fealty and Guardian at the top just to open them up.

Iron Ram gear is VERY good, however if you look closely...



I, uh... suppose you could make armor out of ham. But like everything else daisypaladin said, I wouldn't suggest it.

Not bad advice, although with Chivalry/Devotion/Auto-Refresh/Ballad/Refresh/Parade Gorget/Ares's Cuirass (If you can get one), I don't find myself worrying about MP on my Elvaan so I went with 8/8HP. No fight has ever been lost because I didn't have MP, I can't say the same for HP.



STR is actually the most useful stat for a non-mage class, it ups your fSTR.



Parry merits is a pretty horrible idea for a PLD, Shield merits will help out much more overall since Shield Mastery and Reprisal makes Shield tanking a viable means of damage reduction, whereas Parry is lacking in reliability.

Sword merits, you can't go wrong with.




Crit Hit + is the best option in this category. Beyond that, Enmity merits won't hurt your mages job if you know how the game mechanics (and enmity system) work. If you don't, check out: Kanicans Enmity Testing and Tables



Adaman is pretty crappy, especially compared to Iron Ram, which is free. (And Campaign is a good casual source of XP or Merit Points)



Joyeuse is your best choice, and Charby isn't the horrible demon that he was years ago. He's very easy to duo with a NIN or THF and a RDM or WHM, and he isn't terribly hard for a PLD/RDM and RDM duo, assuming they're both skilled players. A good NIN/DNC can solo him.



Wivre+1 is a ridiculous waste of money. Shield Torque when you're getting hit, Parade Gorget when you're not (Or not getting hit hard enough to cause you to constantly be below the latent), Harmonias Torque for Flash/Cures/JAs.



Woodsman and Ecphoria are far superior to Unyielding or Garrulous. Base stats do nothing for you while you're just swinging away, compared to upping your hit rate a few %.




If by pretty crappy, you mean one of the best bodies PLD can use, then I agree. The Hauby+1 (And Hauby NQ only falls slightly behind) is THE best body piece a PLD can melee in. (Exceptions being Ares's if you need the Refresh or Homam for Excal PLDs). The minor defensive stat difference is nothing compared to the DD capability of large chunks of ACC/Attack, STR/DEX in one slot.




Iron Ram is far superior to every piece of Adaman, offering large chunks of HP and Enmity for a starting PLD. Its excellent to macro into taking magic damage or using JAs. It's pretty horrible for elemental magic builds, unless you have insanely awesome resist pieces everywhere else, WHMs with a fully maxed Barspell set, and BRDs with HQ Crumhorn. (And even then, it's hard to hit enough resist using the full set to reliably resist anything endgame related)



Lamia +1 is great for MDB sets.

Smilodon +1 is inferior to an NQ Amemet for DD capabilities. A large chunk of attack will do more for your melee damage than a few points of STR, especially on a job that gets no native attack boost.


Edited, Sep 22nd 2009 6:17am by NCCoda