Paladin body armor

[Tomasello]

I know it's a simple question but no one seems to have a simple answer. At the moment, what is the best, well rounded, paladin body piece?

All the current pieces I have examined seems to have pros and cons or are good in specific situations but if you could only have ONE piece of Paladin body armor what would it be?

Avalon Breastplate, Koenig Cuirass, Valor Surcoat, Ares's Cuirass, Valhalla Breastplate, Shadow Breastplate, something else all together?

Your thoughts please.....

 

[Zoolander]

If only one? Avalon would be the all-in-one package. It has Enmity, 7 VIT and 13 acc to help with atonement, as well as -5% magic dmg taken. Other pieces beat it when you compare each state alone, but it has the most well rounded stat for nearly all situations.

 

[Jakey]

I have valor and could get avalon but with this I have crazy mp which helps a ton with hate, especially now that there's atonement, not only does the attack help against the dreaded 0s but the refresh means I don't use chivarlry as often so I can use more tp for hate/damage.

it also has defense/vit/hp not far off from koenig which helps in many situations.

 

[Bladewind]

If only one? Avalon would be the all-in-one package. It has Enmity, 7 VIT and 13 acc to help with atonement, as well as -5% magic dmg taken. Other pieces beat it when you compare each state alone, but it has the most well rounded stat for nearly all situations.

Basically this, but what's hard about macro's? Why are you restricting yourself to 1 piece when using 3-6 is so much more effective.

Edit, thinking about it this is like a BLM asking "which stave should I buy?" I'm really interested to know what made you even ask this question.

 

[Caerloc]

I see it as what should i get first-kind of question. Or discussion. Because most people wont get all the bodies they need the same day as they ding 75.

Avalon breastplate is actually the only one that can be bought. And it's a wellrounded piece. I would get that first and work on the others as i can.

 

[Tomasello]

Basically this, but what's hard about macro's? Why are you restricting yourself to 1 piece when using 3-6 is so much more effective.

Edit, thinking about it this is like a BLM asking "which stave should I buy?" I'm really interested to know what made you even ask this question.

Most of the body pieces on that list involve a very large amount of time and effort to obtain. I use my Paladin once a month. It's simply a matter for me to focus on one solid piece for a job I rarely ever use. I already use Valor for my all purpose tanking needs but with all the new options out there I think I could do much better.

If it was as easy as a BLM with a staff question then yes I would just buy them all. Other then Avalon, none of those pieces can be bought and are a huge time sink to get.

And why does Avalon Breastplate have to be so damn ugly? ><

 

[Zoolander]

Basically this, but what's hard about macro's? Why are you restricting yourself to 1 piece when using 3-6 is so much more effective.

Edit, thinking about it this is like a BLM asking "which stave should I buy?" I'm really interested to know what made you even ask this question.

Yea thats the problem with Avalon...its not the best for any one of its stats outside of the Magic Damage Taken -5%, which even that may be overtaken if the IR body ever comes out. Would definitely get more results using separate items for cures, meleeing for TP, and heavy tanking, but those items can be difficult to come by (especially if you don't care all that much about PLD and even then they can be tough) and they aren't that much better.

I do kind of like Avalon for Idle though...its 13 ACC versus the 15 you would get on hauby+1 or Homan body but it has -5% magic dmg taken which is kind of nice for an idle/meleeing piece since plenty of times taking magic dmg is not expected. Feel like the attack might be kinda beneficial on hauby+1 though, just something about wearing a hauby on pld that weirds me out. (This is based on using your Idle set to melee for TP for atonement)

 

[Tymon]

A fully prepared end game PLD will have all of these:

Valor Surcoat (Enmity)
Ares' Cuirass (HP, VIT, Refresh)
Avalon Breastplate (MDB-%)
Assault Breastplate (Elemental resistance)

I would go in this order:

Avalon>Valor>Assault>Ares

 

[Diabllos]

Ares = Idle
Valor/Avalon = Enmity actions
Coral/Avalon = MDT

Assault Breastplate? lol.

 

[Tristam Green]

Assault Breastplate? lol.

Why is it lol? That's some massive elemental resist right there, for those nasty "Throw the Paladin at Sarameya" fights.

 

[Bladewind]

Assault breastplate is only good as part of a larger set, 15 resist alone will do jack shit, you're better with Avalon unless you have about 130 of the element stacked. As part of a specific resist set it's good, as a general MDB piece, not so much.

 

[Diabllos]

I would go in this order:

Avalon>Valor>Assault>Ares

Why are you placing Assault breastplate before Ares's Cuirass here, Tymon?

I assume you mean in which order you'd prioritise use, and in which order to obtain? In which case, surely Ares's Cuirass is first.

Breakdown of the benefits of Avalon breastplate:

1. +3 Enmity can be picked up from Adaman Cuirass,
2. -5% MDT can be practically attained with Coral Scale mail (+1),
3. And the acc can be beaten by Haubergeon rather easily.

With macros and the above pieces, you can get everything Avalon Breastplate has for about 2,000,000 G less. (With the added bonus of not looking mysteriously like a lobster.)

Ares's Cuirass provides the best option for idling and kiting due to it's refresh and HP/MP/DEF (with the exception of Valhalla breastplate if you're not meleeing with Atonement, or macroed for utsusemi down/phsyical WS/Warrior or RDM sub etc). You could say there's V.Cloak for refresh, but the HP/DEF loss is quite significant. On top of that, Ares's Cuirass provides a decent idle piece regardless of whether shadows are up or not -- V.Cloak doesn't. Ares's Cuirass provides the defensive capabilities of M.Body AND the refresh of V.Cloak. (With the added bonus of looking rather badass.)

Why is it lol? That's some massive elemental resist right there, for those nasty "Throw the Paladin at Sarameya" fights.

I think it's rather silly to pay 2M for 10 extra fire resistence, personally (you can already pickup +5 Fire resistence for around 10,000G).

99% of the time you're not going to have a complete resist set. Be that due to a BRD who doesn't have the best instrument for carol or capped/meritted singing/wind/string, or a WHM who doesn't have capped bar-spell merits, blessed briault (let alone capped Shellra V), capped enhancing, or just your own gearset that may be lacking complete resistence. Either way, it's going to be incredibly rare that you would ever be "missing" that 10 resistence more. My point is, unless you have 100% of all the above things to maximise your elemental resistence, it's not worth the huge pricetag.

With the exception of Sarameya (maybe), you won't notice a slight bit of difference with 10 resistence. Even for Sara, I can't imagine how 10 resistence would be anywhere near essential or necessary. And besides, you'll need a mix of MDT, Elemental resist and MDB. Of which, one of the very best MDT pieces is on the body only. Coral scale mail / Avalon brings ~5% MDT, which is incredible (unless you have Aegis, in which case you'll be capped with Shellra V 5/5).

Hope that answers your question Trist.

 

[Caerloc]

Why are you placing Assault breastplate before Ares's Cuirass here, Tymon?

I assume you mean in which order you'd prioritise use, and in which order to obtain? In which case, surely Ares's Cuirass is first.

Breakdown of the benefits of Avalon breastplate:

1. +3 Enmity can be picked up from Adaman Cuirass,
2. -5% MDT can be practically attained with Coral Scale mail (+1),
3. And the acc can be beaten by Haubergeon rather easily.

With macros and the above pieces, you can get everything Avalon Breastplate has for about 2,000,000 G less. (With the added bonus of not looking mysteriously like a lobster.)

Ares's Cuirass provides the best option for idling and kiting due to it's refresh and HP/MP/DEF (with the exception of Valhalla breastplate if you're not meleeing with Atonement, or macroed for utsusemi down/phsyical WS/Warrior or RDM sub etc). You could say there's V.Cloak for refresh, but the HP/DEF loss is quite significant. On top of that, Ares's Cuirass provides a decent idle piece regardless of whether shadows are up or not -- V.Cloak doesn't. Ares's Cuirass provides the defensive capabilities of M.Body AND the refresh of V.Cloak. (With the added bonus of looking rather badass.)

I think it's rather silly to pay 2M for 10 extra fire resistence, personally (you can already pickup +5 Fire resistence for around 10,000G).

99% of the time you're not going to have a complete resist set. Be that due to a BRD who doesn't have the best instrument for carol or capped/meritted singing/wind/string, or a WHM who doesn't have capped bar-spell merits, blessed briault (let alone capped Shellra V), capped enhancing, or just your own gearset that may be lacking complete resistence. Either way, it's going to be incredibly rare that you would ever be "missing" that 10 resistence more. My point is, unless you have 100% of all the above things to maximise your elemental resistence, it's not worth the huge pricetag.

With the exception of Sarameya (maybe), you won't notice a slight bit of difference with 10 resistence. Even for Sara, I can't imagine how 10 resistence would be anywhere near essential or necessary. And besides, you'll need a mix of MDT, Elemental resist and MDB. Of which, one of the very best MDT pieces is on the body only. Coral scale mail / Avalon brings ~5% MDT, which is incredible (unless you have Aegis, in which case you'll be capped with Shellra V 5/5).

Hope that answers your question Trist.

Why on earth would you NEED a mix? You either go for one or the other. If you want a resistance set, you aim for 160+ and with barspell and carol, you will be virtually invulnerable to the specific element. Or you go for a pure dmgcut set, which will always be inferior to a full resistance set, but has the advantage of going with ALL elements.

But you never NEED to mix in resistance with your mdb/mdt, and viceversa you never NEED mdb/mdt in a resist-set. If you have a wellgeared resist set, you practically wont ever se higher dmg then 30, less with phalanx2. You could argue that you could put mdb/mdt in a slot that you dont have fire-resist in, but i dont think there is any slot a pld cant get that in.

 

[Shady]

All of the above suggestions are good for the l33t gears - but the most accessible endgame body gear would def be (in my opinion) AF+1 body. I use this piece reflexively in many situations. It's inexpensive (comparitively speaking) and really not that difficult to obtain. Valour body would be the next piece on my list after AF+1 since no doubt about it, you will have to wait much longer for that than AF+1 or any other body pieces mentioned above.

 

[Diabllos]

Why on earth would you NEED a mix? You either go for one or the other. If you want a resistance set, you aim for 160+ and with barspell and carol, you will be virtually invulnerable to the specific element. Or you go for a pure dmgcut set, which will always be inferior to a full resistance set, but has the advantage of going with ALL elements.

Pretty sure you can get around 150 and still include substantial MDT. You'll reduce a lot more damage by mixing the two though. By mixing resist and MDT, you're not only going to take 75, 50, 25, 0% of the spell/action -- but you'll be reducing the maximum damage it can inflict by a large margin.

For argument's sake, if a fully unresisted Gates of Hades hits you for 1000, a half resist is going to be 500 damage with no MDT taken into consideration. With around 20% in MDT (Merman's rings, coral/avalon, askar feet for example) and Shellra V, that's about 60~70% MDT right there -- reducing the 1000 (or even the 500) substantially. It's a perfect compliment to a resist set, and should give better results than ~15 more elemental resist.

But you never NEED to mix in resistance with your mdb/mdt, and viceversa you never NEED mdb/mdt in a resist-set. If you have a wellgeared resist set, you practically wont ever see higher dmg then 30, less with phalanx2. You could argue that you could put mdb/mdt in a slot that you dont have fire-resist in, but i dont think there is any slot a pld cant get that in.

This is the important part. If substantial MDT can be placed instead of meager resistence, it should benefit you more overall. Only problem with resist setups is there's no guarantee they'll resist at all. Even with 150+, there's a small chance you'll take heavy damage occasionally. MDT% provides a very good fallback option in case that happens, and will reduce any unresists (or low resists) significantly.

 

[Bladewind]

For argument's sake, if a fully unresisted Gates of Hades hits you for 1000, a half resist is going to be 500 damage with no MDT taken into consideration. With around 20% in MDT (Merman's rings, coral/avalon, askar feet for example) and Shellra V, that's about 60~70% MDT right there -- reducing the 1000 (or even the 500) substantially. It's a perfect compliment to a resist set, and should give better results than ~15 more elemental resist.

You could get 50 Fire resist in those slots.

 

[Caerloc]

Pretty sure you can get around 150 and still include substantial MDT. You'll reduce a lot more damage by mixing the two though. By mixing resist and MDT, you're not only going to take 75, 50, 25, 0% of the spell/action -- but you'll be reducing the maximum damage it can inflict by a large margin.

For argument's sake, if a fully unresisted Gates of Hades hits you for 1000, a half resist is going to be 500 damage with no MDT taken into consideration. With around 20% in MDT (Merman's rings, coral/avalon, askar feet for example) and Shellra V, that's about 60~70% MDT right there -- reducing the 1000 (or even the 500) substantially. It's a perfect compliment to a resist set, and should give better results than ~15 more elemental resist.

This is the important part. If substantial MDT can be placed instead of meager resistence, it should benefit you more overall. Only problem with resist setups is there's no guarantee they'll resist at all. Even with 150+, there's a small chance you'll take heavy damage occasionally. MDT% provides a very good fallback option in case that happens, and will reduce any unresists (or low resists) significantly.

Yea, there is a small chance (very small) that you will take heavy damage once. Twice? Not so much. The total dmg reduced will be way larger with a full on resist-set, and you wont be at any risk, cause the chance of taking full dmg twice in a row is abysmal at best. Having tanked countless of tiamats i can say that taking anything above 25% dmg is extremely rare, and even 25% is very uncommon.

People that disgard resist-sets are the people who doesnt want to spend money on it, get cheap half-assed sets, see meager results and deem it no good because of that experience.

 

[Caerloc]

You could get 50 Fire resist in those slots.

That, and not to forget that MDT caps at 50% not 60 or 70%.

 

[Tymon]

My order was a list in which priority I would put in getting the items.

Ares was last only because if I put all of my time towards getting that first I would be severely gimping my ability to obtain the others.

Ares would come along with the free time I had while getting the other items.

And yes, Assault breastplate, if you want to get a fire set for tanking Tiamat, or a light set for tanking Ultima, is easily the best chest piece in the game for such.

 

[Ryou]

Theoretically speaking, is Ares the best idle piece? Yes. Would I take one if given to me? Sure.

Practically speaking, is it worth the price for someone who's not a main Paladin and has other items they could spend 10M on and other things to do besides hunt Qiqirns for rare drops? No. In my opinion the uses are extremely limited for a skilled tank.

There are only a few instances where it really shines; fights where you actually need the MP to actually cure people very aggressively, either to keep them alive or to regain hate rapidly. So... Tiamat when your hate's getting reset. Odin where you'll be constantly losing your refresh. And maybe spammy Nidhoggs (and if your ls is retarded and eats tons of Meteor, then KB).

If the logic is just more MP for Flash and Cures to keep hate, its unnecessary. Helpful, but unnecessary. Every fight minus those above, if you're good at Paladin you're likely at the hate cap after 5-10 minutes. You can easily ride the cap afterward by using Flash wisely and curing yourself wisely (i.e. don't overcure).

In fact getting into the "Must burn MP!" mindset is usually harmful in my opinion. The number one flaw I see in most bad PLDs is that they waste MP using Cures to get hate when Flash would suffice to cap them. All the cures they tossed out got them very little hate for how much MP they spent with how close to the cap they were. They end up running out of MP too fast and in the end their hate suffers more because of this since they don't have the MP to maintain the cap.

I've personally found the HP swapping to Cure for hate thing silly for this exact reason: the MP tradeoff for hate is usually really bad. Then when you run out of MP your line slips below the cap because you have to back off till your MP recovers.

Certainly Ares can't hurt, but for most people it's probably better to roll Avalon.

EDIT: Of course this assumes /nin, not /rdm where you would definitely benefit from Ares.