Blinking too much? A few questions.Follow

Blink as much as you need too, and tell the people in your party they should be using <stpt > in their macros.

The PLD who said "Why do you blink when you provoke" just doesn't know the best way to play his job. There's no reason to idle in emnity gear.

You're doing it right, the hard part is convincing everyone else who thinks they know the best way.

As for other suggestions: If these are pick up parties, or merit parties, pretty much dump every piece of defense gear you have for TP. Should look more like this while attacking.

hield: Koenig
Head: Walahra
Neck: Peacock/chivalrous
Ear: Brutal (Or assault)
Ear: Suppanomimi
Body: Haubergeon
Hands: Dusk Gloves
Ring: Sniper's Ring (woodsmans... something accuracy, or rajas)
Ring: Sniper's Ring
Back: Amemet + 1
Waist: Swift Belt
Legs: Dusk Trousers
Feet: AF
Ammo: Tiphia Sting

Also, at 75 /nin is generally a better option for merit/parties (and most endgame) ((NOTE: /dnc and /rdm will trump it in campaign)) so you can take your AF boots off while TPing and macro them into recasts. Put something like Amir or Dusk on. (Obviously Homam if you have it, but it doesn't look like you're far along in sea)

Macro in Shield skill stuff into your Shadow casts.



IRH is good for enmity/mdb. Pat. ring is very situational. In campaign, it's really not needed unless you're tanking the NMs or have multiple mobs on you. /dnc or /rdm can solo those monsters incredibly easy. Remember, in campaign, you get xp for damage you take, so limiting that damage (if you don't need too) is detrimental. For non-campaign use, you'd probably only use it for end game, which you don't do.. Also, if you don't do endgame, I can't see you getting full usage out of the IRH. It would be a macro piece for job abilities and spells, and then you'd pop the Hauby back on for TP. It would be nice for something like Ultima though.



The defense of the shield determines how much damage is absorbed on a shield block. Koenig = 22. Wivre = 12.



Haste/enmity mixed sets for Flash (Haste where you can, enmity where you can't).
Haste set for Ni recasts.
MdB set for if you ever do endgame.
Not sure if you have a Joytoy. If you don't, put that at the top of your list.




Edited, Oct 11th 2009 10:30am by johnnykrysys

Edited, Oct 11th 2009 10:32am by johnnykrysys

Yea, relatively new to PLD but I've been spreading the word about <stpt> <stal>
for a while now.

As a mage, been using awhile, & even suggest <"Main Tank Name"> to a lot of folks...similar to /assist. Theres really no excuse of "Blinking too much".

The only glitches I've seen are if you have /p in them as well, occasionally will /p chat the wrong target (as in when another mage casts on you While your casting on others ).

Seems to depend on if /p is <t> when should be <lastst>

Seriously?

People are recommending koenig over TEN higher defense?

Really?

Since everyone always parrots "higher defense lowers damage taken", how much less damage will you take from koenig vs a wivre? Heres a hint, the difference is single digits and it only counts on hits you actually block.

Even on shields, the last possible stat you look to is defense. That should be a given nowadays to people. Especially with all the options available now like Terror Shield and Wivre.


To answer the questions about blinking, you absolutely don't have to blink on every single action you ever take. Blinking isn't the enormous boost people make it out to be, and the boost gets smaller the better your gear gets on pld.

I haven't used it in forever, but I still have a non-blinking tanking set that works with ridiculous non-visible gear swaps. You can do it, but you have to give up some efficiency for the perceived extra safety. Personally I'd say to just blink and educate healers on how to handle you.

It may be overkill (in a strictly legal sense), but getting the practice of how to blink, when to blink, and being the best damn PLD you can be is essential to learn as soon as you can. Thus, I started blinking in XP. My choice, my party was fine with it, and I never got a complaint. Mobs can also go down that much faster because the DDs don't have to wait as long. I wish I would have started blinking before 50.

Blinking shouldn't be a big deal. When I was leveling PLD I would macro in enmity bits for JAs and Flash. This was before stpt. I didn't really get any complaints, the PT was just happy for a tank that held hate. Every now and then you'll get a know it all to tell you that you are doing it wrong. Who really cares though...

Mages have many options to take care of blinking. My rather old school stand by WHM has a macro set dedicated to me with my name in each spell. She plays on Xbox too, not being on PC is not an excuse to have crappy macros. This has worked on countless sky gods, missions, random NMs etc. I've had quite a few mages leveling in my social lately who I have shown stpt to, and they love it.

I really don't think this is a wide spread issue anyway. I can't remember in any of the pickups I've gone pld/nin to that a mage had trouble with my constant blinking.

Some like to argue that they don't use stpt/al due to healing outside of the alliance and such end game. Well, why are they using that macro set when they are in a tank party?



Many use Koenig instead of Wivre because there used to be a huge price difference. Kinda a relic of pre SCNM. Now that Terror has come out the price difference is about 100k on my server anyway. I don't know if this is due to less demand or the mats are easier to come by.

Def rating does have some effect on damage taken with shield blocks. Current info points to about .5% -damage per extra point of def, I don't believe this has been thoroughly tested though. 5% difference if this info is accurate. May or may not be much depending on what is in front of you, others would kill for that kind of increase. Situational as always.

Terror is of course the best of both.



Unless you are killing Too Weak up to maybe DC, great sword is not better in any way than 1h sword for a PLD.

As far as priority, I would start putting together specific gear sets for Idling, Curing, Ichi, Ni, JAs and spells. Eventually you will want some gear sets specific to /rdm.

Tieing in a bit to question #1, I would suggest you start making a good deal of gil and mercing the r/e off end game shells if you aren't going to be in one yourself. For now Askar hands and legs are nice for a PLD without homam, feet are decent for an osh*t macro. You'll want to climb Nyzul Isle anyway for Atonement. Aurum boots are a good idle piece till Homam. Aurum legs aren't a bad idle piece either and can be had cheap.

Edited, Oct 12th 2009 1:24am by Yashnaheen

Because, if you have not leveled a mage job yet, you will know that mages sometimes have a sh*t load of macros to go through. Try scholar which somtimes I have to go as.

It gets to the point where I cannot pay attention to the chat screen because I have to run through all my macros looking for the spells I need right away and the job abilities.

The problem here isn't why everyone isn't using the the new macro codes that SE gave us. The problem here is why hasn't SE fixed this issue that affects us all and would make our life much easier? Third party software has a lot of the toys that should be in game already. I never thought I'd write this but I sincerely envy those that can use that particular program to cast.

Firstly, I PL a lot

Secondly, in events where you are capable of bringing more than one alliance but are still limited to only having one alliance engaged with a target mob, it's sometimes wasteful to eat up alliance spots with healers when you can get the job done faster by packing it with more DD. Emphasis on sometimes because you may want things like Barspells and Curaga and whatnot, but sometimes you're just there to be a Cure 5 and Raise bot, in which case you don't really need to be in the group.

Should also point out that I don't really do many endgame things anyway. If you do and you tend to have one particular person that you're always curing, it might make some sense to make a macro dedicated to curing that one person. (Alternatively, instead of using their name, you can wait for your parties to be established and then simply edit the macro to use <p0,p1...p5> or <a10...a15, a20...a25> to correspond with whoever your primary tank is, but this would require being in the party/alliance somewhere.)

Not only would it be the quickest way to get a Cure thrown out, it would avoid any potential blinking issue you might have with that person.

I still say to blink all you like, just try to ease up on it if you're facing imminent death.



I can type pretty fast myself, but my problem is whenever I'm in any remotely laggy environment (read: pretty much any sort of endgamey scenario, or even just at ANY exp camp in Wajaom/Bhaflau, for instance) I experience system lag that causes the letters I type to get registered by the computer much slower than normal, meaning I have to intentionally slow down my typing or else my typing gets fragmented.

I guess most people don't have the problem I do, because I know a lot of people that type out their spells. I still think most of them are rather crazy, though.

I blink for pretty much everything I do, everything. It's never been a problem with any party I've ever been in never mind endgame LS. In fact I blink so much I use BMN for my own benefit as disengaging the mob everytime I do anything is annoying, especially if they have knock back moves.

I've been lurking around these forums for long enough to recognise you're a well educated and skilled pld which is why I'm so surprised you said this. The difference between me blinking and not blinking is 22 enmity, I use my enmity set for all JA's and cures, I also use all the blinkable enmity pieces for my cheat cure macro which I spam a lot. Blinking generates a hell of a lot more enmity for me than a measly .5%, in fact I'd say it's the deciding factor between me tanking and the DD's tanking. What would the whm's rather have, the DD's tanking or making a macro just for the PLD?

Honestly if people die it's either because something went wrong, the tank sucks or the healer does, it has nothing to do with blinking.

I'm willing to bet that a lot of the people that claim this have just never noticed a time when a healer ended up casting Cure on themselves due to a blink (which one might not notice if it didn't cause your death)

Speaking as a healer, I've had quite a few times where a blink has caused a death. The funny thing is I often got told to just use blinkmenot when I was still playing on PS2, or told to just type my spells when they don't understand my problem of system lag.

Edited, Oct 13th 2009 6:23pm by Fynlar

Every so often, me being a loudmouth works out for the best

Have you played a healing job? Is it too much to ask, I don't personally think so, but some MAGES do. With everything else they have to have going, setting up a quick way to get from spell to spell through use of the spell menu is a fair way to do it.



You're proving my point without realizing what my point is. Even "stay[ing] there with flash" is conceding what my exact point is. You're still macroing on that flash, right? And if you get low health, you ARE trying to cure yourself, too? And you're macroing for that as well? Again, when you're close to the hate cap, sometimes +5 Enmity is going to do the exact same thing as the +22 you've got - you're getting to cap. One can result in death and one won't (via blinking missing a cure). There's no other difference. THAT's what the .5% is referring to (and you're taking it WAY too literally) - a very miniscule gain (negligible, hence the .5%) and it MIGHT result in a death. It's under the PLD's control. That's all I'm saying. I'm also conceding in my post that it's probably as bad overkill to write both macros, though. I know people that do it regardless.





You're missing the logic. With everything a WHM does and needs macros for, asking for one more macro just might be too much. Exactly as much as asking you to have a second macro to gear swap under different circumstances.

Notice my bolded text that I've requoted above. I'm talking specifically about when you're in a new group or have a new WHM that you just don't trust yet. I'm sure you've had them - the new kid on the block that hasn't quite proved he can do his job right. For a fairly new WHM, sometimes that targeting method that gets lost to blinking is all they're used to. And until you die from blinking, they probably won't see WHY they have to change. When I'm rocky on any healer, I avoid blinking when I'm near death. It's just common sense.



The bolded part is the bit where your whm is starting to suck by the way. If people don't want to use macros yet can still do their job then that's awesome, go for it. This discussion is about mages who can't do their job (cure the tank) and you're saying it's the pld's problem to solve because the whm can't use macros?[/quote]

Where did I say they were MY WHMS? My WHMs didn't ever macro their cures for me - they typed it manually. Guess how many times I died and what caused it? sh*t hitting the fan (back to back triple attack from Byakko - all connected hits being crits - Banishga III or both attacks from Joyeuse countered by Omega). I'm not talking about MY WHM's. I'm talking about WHMs in general and situations specifically counter to where blinking is proficient.

And, yes, if the WHM can't rise to your expectations of a WHM... It is your responsibility to deal with the situation as well as you can and try to find a way to make this work. Hence the two sets of macros for high health/low health. Failure to do so on the principle that "I'm doing this right and he's wrong!" just doesn't sit well with me. I wouldn't view you as a team player.



Regardless of who can cure the PLD, when a PLD goes down, he needs to do a "certain degree of self analysis after a defeat". It's not as simple as asking for appropriate macros from healers. It's not as simple as saying "and for whm that means healing the tank". It's not as simple as saying the PLD should have two macro sets. It's not even as simple as saying "we're just not ready for this mob". The PLD needs to ask himself "What change do _I_ need to make to perform better." And for SOME groups (mine is not included - this is a general comment), having the PLD NOT blink when he's concerned about his health means HE's the one who needs another few macros to stop the blinking from occurring.

Each team needs to find the balance that works for them. Sure, the ideal is that the WHM has enough macros to have a dedicated macro for her tank. It's also ideal that the PLD use the right tools for the job. It's ideal for a WHM to have BMN and not have to worry about blinking. But in reality, no group gets the ideal setup. And, unfortunately, that means that you'll have to deal with the lumps as they come.

I'm going to end this post with the following: I'm an avid supporter of using macros. I believe that the <stpt> and <stal> tags are a godsend that can preclude a lot of issues. I believe that BMN should be added to the core of FFXI and not simply an add-on to a third party tool. I believe that each group needs to find the solutions for themselves and identify what's going wrong. And I believe that just as everyone gets credit when the LS wins, it's also everyone's fault when the LS loses. Learn from each defeat and you grow stronger.

Sipar isn't a Size 3 Shield, the size affects the % of damage blocked, regardless of it's Defense Rating.

yeah, thats what i was trying to get at. its the size of the shield that determines how much damage is negated upon a shield block.... not its def rating

If you want to do a more comprehensive test and prove it one way or the other, compare a Koenig shield across 100 shield blocks (not hits taken) vs. Iron Ram Shield across 100 shield blocks. If there's a noticeable difference, you'll see it. They have to be the same size, though, as it's been verified (and common knowledge) that different sizes block different amounts. We just haven't had anyone show proof one way or the other if defense adjusts how much is blocked within a size.

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html?fjob=5;mid=1180062662109938677

Not sure how legit it is, but seems to work out correctly.