Limbus food?Follow

If i'm on PLD i'm /NIN in full DD gear, Usually eat Pizza+1.
/NIN and you wont have to matter as much about how hard things hit you.

You have it at 37, start using it for everything except JOL, Dynamis and Campaign (and Some other NM's Solo/farming where /RDM Shines.)

Against any DD that's trying to do damage and doesn't care if they're the tank, you're not gonna hold hate on normal mobs in Limbus under any circumstances. You could get one mob every 5 minutes or so if you spam your job abilities, but that's it.

What I do when I'm on PLD for Limbus is take my DD gear and my tanking gear. I use my DD gear for normal mobs, and switch to tanking for any sort of boss. I always eat either pizza or dorado sushi when I'm on PLD/NIN, even for HNMs like Proto fights, gods, etc.

The answer has been summed up pretty well. You won't be tanking normal mobs period. Pick and choose nasty mobs to spend your timers on, go DD. Pretend its Dynamis- DDs /assist you, you move to the next mob promptly. Flash it asap to get initial hate off the sleeper if its slept. Continue until you clear lol...

Thanks for the input, guys. I'll stop trying to tank except on bosses. I'll just play main assist.

Edited, Oct 1st 2009 12:28pm by jAriusEightySix

A lot of the members who come have a lot of RL demands on their time, so attendance is sort of a "Let's see who's here today and roll with it," deal. We usually have anywhere from 5 to 10 people show up, although we're working on getting Sea for more members.

As for job distribution, I'm the only tank until we start doing omega/ultima, and there's usually 2-3 DDs, a WHM, RDM, BLM, sometimes a SMN, and a COR.

Oh, and a lot of the members have various jobs they can switch around at need. So we usually have 2 blms for kings, or whatever setup we need to do the zone we're doing.

Edited, Oct 1st 2009 12:49pm by jAriusEightySix

With your jobs, I might actually go SAM/Something.

Like others have said, Limbus is more of a Burn situation. Melee's should have their own damage mitigation, and you should cut things down as fast as possible.

Im a bit confused with this, can you please clarify this a bit more, what exactly would you switch out to? You can tank omega/ultima in the same gear you DD on pld/nin as. The only thing you could switch on would be a shield, and even then, you can dual wield tank omega, til 25% where after that I wouldnt want to chance getting countered up the ass.

DD gear and tanking gear all have a place, and that is in macros, you can dd while idle and swap to shield/damage reduction gear while your shadows are down. Shield gear isnt helping you one bit with shadows up, their AoEs are magic anyhow. HP gear isnt a priority as omega has no 1 shot move, Ultima does a count down for you to swap gear to avoid a 1 shot anyhow.


-edit- did you mean you dont carry any shield/damage taken gear in your inventory when you DD?

Edited, Oct 3rd 2009 8:01am by hitoseijuro

I usually go /NIN and use Dorado Sushi or Carbonara, whatever is in my inventory. Sometimes I still have pizza active from merits, and that's cool too. I don't bother to get the Brown Magic quest to remove it.

Also, do you have Atonement? It makes it spectacularly easy to get/hold hate.

Edited, Oct 3rd 2009 11:43am by boywithoutaspoon

I can agree with that, but at the same time it depends on how the pld does it. You can basically cap out your Atonement in seconds from first engaging a mob. I would only recommend doing that on HNMs/NMs etc. Or if you dont need your JAs. On campaign type mobs I usually start off with a vorpal blade and then an Atonement if the mob is still alive. In dyna I just VB and atonement if its toward the end of the mobs HP and I can assure myself it will do more damage than VB.

Are your DDs treating it like a TP burn? Are you getting swarmed by tons of mobs? Do you have sleepers to handle the bad pulls?

The initial hate spike from /WAR is NOT that much bigger than the hate spike you get from DD gear coupled with flash and self cures. The biggest thing you need to get is a good enmity set, a good haste set, and a good DD set. Chances are, you've got a lot of all of it, but you really do need to macro as many pieces as you can - it will make your life easier.

It's also an experience thing. You need practice. I'd suggest going to campaign and trying to learn the ins and outs of getting hate from the NQ mobs during battles. You'll learn a lot by doing that.

If you have sleepers, cast a cure on them, then use a "Cure Cheat" on yourself. Instant hate on every one of the mobs they slept. This way, when someone DOES wake up the mob, it'll take less effort to get the mobs to turn your way. Use your mp, use your tools, and eventually, you'll see things turn around.

Experience will fix the "having to remember to count" and "forgetting the cure cheat macro". Find any event you can do it in. Most mobs in limbus die so quickly, it feels like a glorified TP burn. I just wish we got XP for doing it.

As for damage mitigation... What do they do for merits? They shouldn't have to rely on /NIN if they don't want, but they need something.

WAR should be subbing /SAM or /NIN, anyway, depending on their setup. They also have retaliation.
MNK shouldn't sub /NIN unless they're just THAT uber, but they have counterstance if they need it. Anyone subbing /WAR CAN use Defender (shudder) if they absolutely have to.
THF shouldn't ever be pulling hate give their potential to drop a metric sh*tton of hate on someone else.
BST has snarl if/when they do pull hate. I've seen so few BSTs, though, that I'd be surprised to see one in any group (not that I'm against it... it's just a rare sight).
DRK may have some issues, but they have Dread Spikes and Drain.
DRG gets High Jump and Super Jump to pull down their hate a little. Their wyvern also does a good job at spreading damage without building hate.
SAM has SETE which should last just long enough on a typical mob.
NIN... you probably don't have NINs, but they can easily take care of themselves.
BLU should probably be subbing /NIN anyway for typical floors. /THF for bosses. They've also got some nifty tools to keep themselves alive.

Most other jobs are either very specific hybrids or are watching their hateline through other methods and don't usually compete for hate on the mobs (exception being slept mobs, of course).

Anyone who's performed in a typical merit party knows they need some form of damage mitigation. They'll have to learn - the reason they're pulling hate from you is because it's a TP burn fest with potential for huge linkage problems. /WAR is barely going to stop the problems if it even comes close to it.

Again, it's something your LS has to get used to. If you're not confident you can pull it off, by all means, go /WAR. It'll give you a slight edge, but they'll probably still complain about it. Maybe less, since you're doing what they asked, but it works out very similarly. In the mean time, get some more XP trying to play with PLD/NIN. Then, when you feel more comfortable with it, you can crack it out again and amaze everyone.

What everyone else said about normal non-U/O Limbus, really. Take this with a grain of salt though, as I have a bunch of 75 jobs and PLD isn't one of them. But there's one cardinal rule to remember about Limbus: Mobs hit HARD. Doesn't matter what job you're on. They hit HARD. Shadows are your best bet for reducing damage taken and DD gear is best for increasing damage output. It's really just a larger-scale merit PT and a race against the clock at that.



This I can't agree with! Not to sound harsh, but the DDs need to learn how to tank and take mitigation subs. Trust me, I hate /NIN on stuff like SAM as much as any person you'll find in the game but it's necessary here for low-man situations, much more than a merit PT where I wouldn't expect a SAM to /NIN in a million years unless they're a Hasso riding idiot. At this stage in the game, every DD is supposed to share tanking responsibilities, as they all have different ways to mitigate damage. The "initial hate" thing is really not valid (nothing against you at all, they're expecting you to do way more than you can as a tank). If you get hit twice with the amount of damage Limbus mobs put out, your hate is gone. Nothing you can do about it. Sometimes in lesser end-game situations like this, PLD isn't the only tank like they're expected to be in XP PTs 10-74, they're there as a support DD just like other DDs, only with extra abilities to protect their PT, like Flashes/Cures etc. Don't be too proud to lose hate - you have many different ways of helping a PT/alliance even without hate. I'm sure you know that many PLDs (and even most of these PLD's PT's) think that they need to keep hate 100% of the time and burn all of their MP on the first mob to keep hate. This is not the case. It's a team effort. Let that WAR take a bit of the enmity for a few seconds and soak up the dmg with Utsu while you get back on your feet. That's what they have Ustu/Third Eye for! Don't try to bear the weight of the PT on your shoulder's alone.

Here's a Temenos North rundown, as you said you had trouble with it:

First floor is RDM and WAR Moblins. Firstly, if this was where you had problems with links on pulls, your sleepers need to get into shape. The most you have to deal with in the first and second rooms is the two RDM Moblins. Sleep one and take the other, easy stuff. If the RDM decide to Chainspell enfeebles faster than your mages can handle, coupled with nukes, a PLD is dead without shadows. Same deal with the two WAR Moblins on the first floor - although easier than the RDMs, if you're expected to be the only tank through Mighty Strikes without shadows you're as good as dead, or your mage(s) are gonna be really hurting for MP by the end. Mighty Strikes+Goblin Rush is DEADLY without shadows to absorb a few hits.

For the second floor, my low-man group (usually 5-7 people) just take out Kari, the MNK Gigas and then move on to the next floor. The three Gigas in the middle, Beli (RNG), Thrym (WAR) and Skadi (BST) all automatically link and become a problem if you're low-manning. Especially Skadi, as he has a Charm ability which is not fun. They can be slept and SMN/BST pulled but it's usually not worth the trouble. Sleep Kari's Hundred Fists and have your DD turn around if it's a problem.

Third floor is Sahagin. You can try to sleep or run through the DRG and MNK as a PT and head straight for the WHM, as a group, although it takes timing. You'll most likely need to take out the DRG anyway, as it blocks your passage to the west and is a lot easier than the MNK. Here you might have to grab the other MNK, sleeping Hundred Fists as needed, then kill the BRD easily. You should have another chest by now and the gate opened. If not, take out the first MNK mob and go up.

Fourth floor looks intimidating, but it's not bad. Isolate both groups of BLMs, sleeping one while killing the other, they're squishy. One should open the door. If you want to go for a chest, take the group of three in the middle, Dynamis style.

Fifth floor is the easiest yet. Take out the Antica (we go counter-clockwise, but any order works) and head up.

The easiest way to do the Sixth Floor, if low-manning, is to run past the initial mobs when they have their back's turned and nab the Charmer in the NW section. After that, kill the wandering Abductor to the east, then preferably sleep the remaining Tonberries and head up.

The next and last floor is five goblins. Sleep and pull individually, kite, quick sac pull, whatever works for your group best. You should have a strategy formulated by now. Go with it!

Wow, uh, I completely forgot about this thread. Sorry for the necropost, but I figure I owe you guys a report on how this panned out.

My shell has insisted that I come /war from now on. They say that even a little initial hate is better than the mob bouncing around from the getgo. I suppose I can sort of see the logic behind this, mostly because there's at least one DD who does not and probably will never have a dmg mitigating sub. They just don't play enough any more to be able to lvl one; they pretty much show up for Limbus and that's their entire playtime.

I don't really appreciate having to make up for others' failings, but since the hammer has fallen, I've been looking for ways to maximize my hate output, and so far idling in DD gear while using tacos seems to do a reasonable job. I still have my massive equip swap macros for JA's / flash / anything else under the sun, and the mob seems to be on me for a good portion of the time, although not the entire time by any means.

Now I'm just waiting for someone to ask why I'm wearing a hauby when I "should be wearing tank gear." >.>

I just realized that I completely forgot Defender exists. I know it's a no-no on the normal mobs, but I'm thinking that popping it on bosses would be the better option, as far as keeping hate goes: theory being that not generating enmity from attacks is more than offset by losing much less CE from being hit. Just wanted to run this past you guys and see if it's a sound idea.

Keep in mind I'm idling in DD gear but using tacos.

Basically this^

Its really hard to justify pld in limbus outside of boss runs. And if you do bring a pld, dont expect him to tank long. Limbus has very squishy low evasive mobs(minus birds) which are ideal for heavy hitting DD jobs.


I feel that there is a lack of organisation with this statement. RL is understandable, it is. However unless you decided to do limbus when you feel like it, generally limbus is a planned event your shell does x2 every week *around* the same time/day for the majority of the time.

So with that, there should be no reason why the DDs that are coming to limbus should not have the *appropriate* sub. For my shell I always have a /lsmes of the upcoming events. From attendance I know which members attend limbus a majority of the time. So roughly I know what jobs I have and what jobs I dont have, so I know what zones I can complete for the night. It feels like......to me, they just dont want to be assed out to have to sub a different sub they dont like. Its really a lack of respect for ppl who do their best to organize events :/ Theres never enough thanks for ppl who organize events, more complaints...than anything.

Tbh, you can do most of the zones with 2x DD/nin brd(you dont even need a brd, but helps with no other DD) rdm whm blm. You can clear all apolly zones with that setup minus kings(well you could tech.)I prefer to send 3 blms to clear kings alone while the rest of the group clears another zone >.>;

That seriously sucks (._.)

I was pretty much PLD for 95% of my time at limbus, I'd pld/nin and wear my full DD + dual wield swords + eat meat or sushi (didn't have pizza back then), swapping into shield on each floors boss or on floors with difficult targets (such as the gigas).

There were several times when other paladins would tank instead, well mostly when I first started the shell we had another "main" PLD. These other paladins would occasionally sub /war - it was rather awful. As we all know and has been said, /war actually has a tougher time holding hate thanks to being smacked around for disastrous amounts - and if you whore up on all your defense, you can't pump out enough damage to hold hate anyway. I tried /war I think twice, it was rocky both times. Floors that were easy before became difficult, for me at least.

That's a shame that your LS doesn't like PLD/nin. One suggestion I can give is perhaps have somebody come as nin/war? Then they get their provoke-fix as well as having a tank that isn't going to sponge more MP than any of the DD's would. I went as NIN several times and found it a bit harder to hold hate (Flash is just delicious) but it was okay. The nin could even use Yonin if they're really worried, and you can have a couple DD's come along thf (such as yourself as sam/thf).

Edited, Mar 28th 2010 2:04pm by LordFaramir

Well, I'm always changing my idle set from limbus to limbus to experiment, but let me give you a general idea. This is my gear with tacos; it's a little heavier on the acc than with DD food, but it's been a long time since I've used DD food.

Joyeuse
Koenig
*
Smart Grenade (would use tiphia, but I don't like the -hp)

Turban (thinking of replacing with Ohat depending on next parse)
Shield Torque
Brutal
Fowling
NQ Hauby
Dusk gloves
Ulthalam's
Rajas (would another acc ring be good here?)
NQ Cerberus
Swift or Virtuoso, depending on acc parse
Ryl Kgt Breeches (I know, I know, but I have not Askar or Homam and I can't justify buying Dusk atm)
Gallant +1


And of course I have swaps for haste, spike hate, cure cheat, shield skill, Mdef and WS acc, if I haven't forgotten anything. Now that I think of it I should probably put Jelly and Patronus into my shield skill set. I should also probably reaugment my Blitzer Poleyn to put -PDT on them (I put HP and enmity on them for some reason I can't remember any more).

As far as WSs go, with tacos my Vorpals never seem to break 350 or so, so I usually spike some quick hate and go for Atonement, which nets me at least 450 on first use.

But as for my Vorpal build, it's the same as above except for:

Head: Champion's Galea (with STR+4, WS acc+15, WS damage+2%)
Neck: Chiv Chain
Ear: Thinking of using Aesir Ear Pendant next time instead of Fowling, see how well that works. I keep Brutal on though.
Hands: Fourth Gauntlets
Waist: Virtuoso
Feet: Rutter Sabatons


For Atonement I just wear my spike hate gear.

That's a good tip. Thanks, I'll try that.



I know this very well, so telling me serves no purpose; it's my shell that needs to know, but unfortunately they don't listen to me any more. I've said this a couple times now. All I can do is bow to their whims.

edited for grammar.

Edited, Mar 28th 2010 10:34pm by jAriusEightySix

Maybe it was the fact that I was using a shield. Are you saying I should bring dual swords to Limbus? I do have an organics I can mainhand, but I'm not an expert at keeping shadows up yet / there's no bard / I don't think people slow the mobs, and my shield was helping me a lot with ichi.

I did always have hate back about 10sec into the fights when I was /nin, but the first WS (the DDs like to WS at the start of the fight) would always pull it off me. I think the reason they like /war so much is because the two immediate hate spikes let them WS at the start without pulling hate right away, although of course I still don't keep hate very long after that.


I did make it work, at least after the first few seconds of the fight. The issue is that the DDs are stuck in the 2005 mindset where provoke > all and /nin means "lol you have no voke! how can you hold hate??", and all they saw were those first few seconds where I didn't have hate because they WSed too soon. Hell, they even complained about hate bouncing too much over the course of the fight when I was /nin. I guess they never noticed that hate bounces just as much with me /war, except it doesn't bounce back onto me.

After only a couple runs with me /nin (I hadn't even gotten used to it yet), the shell leader put it to a vote, and unfortunately there are more DDs than there are of me, so I got told to come /war.

Admittedly, I hadn't figured out the "save TP for a vorpal at start" part yet, so that could be part of the reason.


The gear choices in that post were dependent on me eating tacos; but with pizza I agree with you here. Except for...

I chose Bushinomimi for my sam. My endgame shell (which isn't my Limbus shell) has me come sam to everything, mostly cause I don't have things like homam or ele resist sets yet. Add the fact that I never really got to dual-wield in the past, and I decided Bushi would benefit me more than Suppa.


Of course. :)

It's possible, though, that I was actually curing myself too much, instead of letting my sword swings take care of a lot of hate. A lot of times I feel like I have to be doing something, instead of just standing there swinging.

I'm actually starting to consider telling the shell leaders I'm going to do whatever I want without it being open for debate. It's a social shell and I'm a core member so it's not like they'll kick me, although they might start using other people with pld lvled for all I know. I guess we'll have to see.

Edited, Mar 29th 2010 5:38pm by jAriusEightySix

I'm inclined to think that this is most of your problem. If you start every fight with Flash, and CureIV, weaponskill, and everyone else starts the fight with a weaponskill, then your WS would have to be embarrassingly terrible for you not to still have hate.

You should be getting half your hate from damage. You should definitely be using two swords, especially once you have two multi-attacking swords.

I won't ever fault anyone for choosing gear based on what job they prefer. However, a SAM gets +25 ACC just for being a 2h job, and very often subs a job with an Accuracy Bonus trait, so the 4.5 ACC on a Bushi isn't very exciting for tp, and might literally do nothing if you're eating pizza. A SAM should also be getting 2/3 of its damage output from WS, and the Bushi is exactly the same as an AH STR earring for WS. A Suppa, on the other hand, is a pretty powerful for a PLD/NIN, probably second only to a Hauby. It's absolutely cool if you chose a Bushi because you like SAM better than PLD, but there's also no denying that a Bushi does little for a SAM, and a Suppa does a lot for a PLD.

If you like SAM that much more than PLD, why come PLD at all? Even if somehow no one in the shell is a NIN or PLD, any of the melee DD jobs could be main tank just fine (A full-time Seigan SAM/WAR might actually take less damage than a PLD/WAR), so why are you forced to come as main tank but no-one else is?

But, anyway, if you simply must come PLD/WAR, then build yourself around holding hate mostly through damage, because at 75 damage holds hate in a way that job actions do not (which is why the DDs take hate from you). The beauty of a shield is that it works regardless of how much DEF you have, so stop trying to rely on DEF (which offers little improvement even when relentlessly stacked), and use your shield as your primary defensive measure.

Just a counterpoint - while I can definitely see the value of dual-wielding for raw damage, I have a really hard time giving up a shield even on climbing. Shield block/Reprisal for getting utsu back up, and Shield Bash to stun (especially if a mob goes tearing off after a blm) are just too valuable for me.

On the other hand, I'd go for CC or PCC on neck instead of Shield Torque, and DD feet if you have them instead of Gallant, except for when recasting :Ichi. Also, I'd fulltime Swift. There's very little need for pure acc, and even then pizza is generally recommended if it's even vaguely an issue (Apollyon with the birds is the only main case I'd use it); otherwise, yellow curry buns, or mithkabobs if you want to run cheap. (Caveat: I might be biased, since I use Homam hands/legs/feet + PCC + 2 sword merits to reach perhaps 90% hit rate; without as much accuracy in gear, yeah, just go with the pizza for now.)




Not strictly true. Provoke is VE, and thus can't be lost from damage taken, just time. CE, on the other hand (damage done or healed, mainly) gets wiped as you take damage, to such an extent that even a fully turtled Defender pld/war will exhaust any CE you could possibly accumulate (even assuming you could accumulate it at a rate comparable with a DD Berserked pld/war). Provoke just helps overload the VE side to make up for the lack of any CE.

Shadows, on the other hand, help preserve the CE you accumulate, and you'll be accumulating more since you'll be focusing more on damage anyway.

Two notes here. First, if fights are lasting long enough that you're meaningfully using Atonement, then you are diluting your tp gain by Dual-Wielding only one multi-attacking sword and not getting any improved weaponskills in return. Second, if you're struggling to recast ichi (which makes me think that the fights are lasting for a while, since you should be going nine hits against non-AoE mobs before you could have a recast issue), then use a buckler shield while /NIN. Not having a Suppa also meaningfully diminishes the value of the Dual-Wielding. Basically, until your Dual-Wield gear is better optimized (swordchucks and a suppa being the core elements, there), two swords might not be enough of an improvement to stress about, and you should feel comfortable using a shield instead.

As an aside, you've mentioned issues with ichi, which makes me think that the rest of your group isn't supporting their tank very well. DRK and BLM should be stunning. WHM should be Flashing. The spells are fast to cast, cheap for mp, and make a mob stand there uselessly. You should be having little trouble keeping up shadows against most mobs as long as there are even two regular Stuns.

At any rate, subbing /NIN will get you a ton of extra hate from damage now that you can eat real food and replace your shield gear with offensive stats. Add that to the hate not lost from being hit, and there's way more total enmity there than an always-diminishing Provoke is going to give you.

Fair enough, but I was working on the assumption that even as a turtle /WAR he'd be doing some damage, and so gaining some CE that he wouldn't keep at all without /NIN.

I can't really give you advice on Vorpal. I've been going through my parses, and haven't found any yet where I went pld and used Vorpal extensively. The vast majority of my time as pld in Limbus (at least the runs I have parses for) I've had Atonement, and likewise for the other current main pld.

For our usage patterns, Atonement will tend to average around 400-500, so if you have Vorpal doing similar damage it should be fine. The gear you list is pretty solid all around, and 400 dmg seems a reasonable target, especially since you can get that damage immediately on each fight instead of needing to build hate like with Atonement. Just make sure you have solid accuracy when parsed.

For a more broad view, for me and the other current pld (since we got him to start doing pld/nin), the pld does roughly 1/3 to 1/2 the damage total of the top DDs. Our other pld, when he went /war all the time, did about 1/4 the damage of the top DDs. Some very old parses I have from when I first joined the shell have the pld at the time (not either of the current ones) doing anywhere from 5% to 15% of the top DDs (Spirits Within, Vorpals for under 100, etc).

I would suggest parsing regularly, and aim to reach 50% of your best DD's damage. Note that this is a fluid target. Our thf is more middling, and usually gets stuck in the secondary party anyway (stupid 6 person limit), and the pld (me or the other) can often match his damage. Likewise, the pld can come fairly close to the more mid-range DDs (~75% of one of the drks, for example). The only one you really need to compete with, though, is the best one. Parse to find out who that is (it's not always obvious) and do your best to make sure they don't leave you in the dust.

Things to look for:
80%+ hit rate, preferably 90%+. If you're capping hit rate due to Pizza, change acc gear to more attack-focused gear.
65/35 melee/weaponskill split; indicating that you're using TP promptly, and that you're getting good weaponskill damage
Melee average higher than your base weapon damage (35 for Joyeuse, though a bit more due to fStr). Can be difficult with gear options available unless you get outside attack buffs (eg: Chaos Roll), but try for 38+.

Should be doing more than 50%. I am admittedly too tired of the "DD PLD" (or, as I prefer, "intelligent player playing PLD with shadows up") discussion to math it all out for you... this job really gets you jaded, having to answer "y r u warin that gera on pld bro?" all the time. Half my blist is the result of that type of stuff.

Anyway, yeah, Suppa+merits+decent gear (pre-Homam, not including anything more expensive than 1m gear) you shouldn't be scraping around at 33% of a DD's output.

My experience is about the same 50% of top tier DD assuming a well geared/merited pld.

An average geared pld will only do 1/3 (or less) of a top tier DD.