Paladin: Opinion, by Itikuo-Quetzacoatl

Well there comes a time when you actually level Paladin and you realize some of your original end armor choices perhaps weren't as good as you thought. My original goal was to simply make a full defense paladin. However I did not know to well about Enmity. Well I knew a little from being SAM75/WAR37 and why spamming WS were not such a smart idea. Same goes for DRK/NIN who don't sub NIN and connect a Soul Eater WS at start of fight. Well after much deserved criticism I am going to edit this guide a little. A few things will stay the same as they are just how I want to be. Now remember this isn't really a guide. This is just a display of what I believe to be the best armor as well as being what I want. If you send me /tells in game and harrass me well I will just report you to a GM...Yeah I went there bite me.

The Job
Paladin / Warrior (Tank of Tanks)

The Level
SEVENTY FIVE

The Race
ELVAAN

The Sword of Chivarly
Burtgang DMG 46 Delay 282(Assuming Gear Equipped) Enmity +10 Physical Damage -10% "Reduces Enmity decrease when taking physical damage. Atonement (Kick @$$ weapon skill based on how much Enmity the monster has on you. I don't fully know much about this weapon but the stats alone are enough to make me want this for End Game. I will get that other sword for endgame until I have this one. I've been told Enmity is the key factor for holding hate while DD's spam their damaging methods. So the +10 is the best you can get from Sword.

The Shield of Prudence
I originally wanted to get an Aegis However I don't plan on playing this game for the rest of my life and choose the somewhat easier to obtain Burtgang Over Aegis. I'll take the enmity and physical reduction. Still won't be better than the relic shield for receiving less damage. But I can think of lots of stuff to use the millions of Gil and 2 years time it would take me to get a Relic Shield. So with that I will get the next best thing.

Koenig Shield HQ the better but this is the only other shield I will have. Granted there is a shield with more Enmity and possibly cheaper than the HQ version however Koenig Shield is well enough for PLD in my opinion. Its a shame we can't use Genbu's Shield.

The Bow of Stats
As such Paladin has no Archery skill naturally. Only the important stats are listed~

Rosenbogen +1 HP+12 Vitality+4 Ideal but expensive. I might just settle for the FREE Bibiki Seashell Vit+4 "Aquan Killer" that only takes about 5 min to do the CS then wait until after JP Midnight.

The Never Going To Have Ammo
Judge's Arrow DMG 100 Delay 120 GM ONLY- Its not fair to not have natural Archery Skill and be able to equip nice skills. At least give paladin and E Rank and while your at it give RDM a E rank in Staff.

The Hand's of Justice
Homam Manopolas DEF:20 HP+20 MP+20 Accuracy+4 Enmity+3 Haste+3%

The Legs of Crimson
Crimson Cuisses DEF:43 HP+25 MP +25 Movement Speed+12% Fire+20 Thunder+20 Water+20 Dark+20

The Feet of Courage
Askar Gambieras DEF:17 MP+30 STR+3 AGI+3 Damage Taken-2% Enmity+2

Rings
Hercules' Ring Enmity+3 1MP per tick 3HP per tick HP < 50% (Orange) Defending Ring Damage Taken -10%

Earrings
Ethereal Earring HP+15 ATK+5 EVA+5 Converts 3% of damage taken to MP (Hit for 100=3MP) Knight's Earring VIT+2 Shield Skill+5 Divine Magic Skill +5

Belt
Warwolf Belt DEF:6 STR+5 DEX+5 VIT+5 Enmity+3

Back
Shadow Mantle DEF:15 Occasionally annuls damage from physical attacks (arguebly 5%-10% of the time) Darksday: VIT+20

The Meal of Champions
Tavnazian Taco hHP+1 hMP+1 DEF+25% HP+20 MP+20 DEX+4 VIT+6 AGI+4 CHR+4

Weapon Skill of Choice: Atonement (with all the Enmity you will have= up to 700 dmg with only 100% TP. Damage is like spirits within as it is non phsyical or magic based however it can be resisted by certain abilities but likewise its very reliable and potent. Hurts members of the Cerburus Family even more. Use every 100%TP as having 300% is only an extra ~50 dmg. And in this amount of time you could have done over 700*3 dmg to the monster you are fighting, or have had your TP wiped by cetain enemy TP attacks.

SUB JOBS
Warrior: The best sub you could use for exping since other subs wont have good enough tools for you to stay solid till you get high enough to tank high end mobs but next gen paladins find a lot more benefits from some other subs such as nin, drk and rdm.

Ninja: Used for certain End Game events. IE Mini Gods in sky. With a couple thieves Ambush-Trick attack at your back, you can hold hate without just as good if you had provoke. A sword and shield combo is the best for most of the possible scenerios.

Thief: Use this for farming. Your better off taking THF to 75 as its easy and doesn't need to be expensive if you don't want it. DEX gear isn't expensive. My THF48 has DEX+32 and AGI+26 though my attacks are low my SNEAK ATTACK +/ TRICK ATTACK is very potent since I mix attack gear into the equation as well.

Black Mage: I haven't heard of a reason for this outside of heck i really don't know. The only thing I would say is level it to 18 get WARP and if you ever need to get back to your HP real quick you have a free warp.

White Mage: Good to level as a means of keeping your Enhancing Skill up which shouldn't matter as the only Enhancing Spells paladin has is protect and shell and thus your skill doesn't effect these two as you will only cast them between fights if ever. Good for PL though.

Red Mage: With fast cast, stoneskin, phalanx, and various other nice perks like enspells, blaze spikes, and barspells, as well as Dia II and Bio II and I'd like to say Gravity increased mp pool and magic defense bonus all add up to help.

Scholar: Ok since the addition of this wonderful job which no matter what you are whether you have the skill or not. You use light arts or dark arts which increase the respective sskill level to a B rating. I joked around on this as SAM75/SCH25 and was amazed to find out I had over 225 skill points in elemental magic. Spells still were that of a Dark Knight using Fire but was nice. Now take this into consideration with Paladin. You increase your crap skills to make for B leveled skills. you get a -10% spellcasting and recast effect, a nice ability every now and again for 50% off spellcasting and recast, 50% off MP, and 10% less cost of MP per respective spell. at level 70 you get Sublimation which with a full charge in just under a few minutes is a boost of 130+ MP. You also get spells that are usually exclusive to whm, rdm, blm also such as sleep, Regen, poisona, Dispel, and Erase. a boost to your MP pool and if this job only had stoneskin and phalanx it would be pawn.

Monk: Increase your HP maximum for stronger 300% Spirits Within, Increase VIT, Add in counter, boost, focus, dodge, and give you some guarding skill which does you no good as it only works with H2H or bare hands.

DRG: Hey nothing is as amuzing as a heavy armored Paladin pouncing their foes. If your Galka its like having a car dropped on you. Aside from that you don't get a wyvern which SE needs to fix that. You get no extra things other than some attack and accuracy bonus and hey your Polearm skill is still at E rank.

DRK: If you are fighting a mob that you shouldn't be straight tanking (for example; king behemoth), drk sub is great to keep the hate on yourself. Some black magic spells such as Stun, Blind, Poison (even if you cant stick the spell on the mob, you still get the enmity) are really good hate tools as long as you have enough support on you to keep spaming those spells w/o falling into danger. For dd purposes; there is almost no benefit from it unless you just want to see some big numbers using Soul Eater and Last Resort. Other than that, stun is useful to avoid strong TP moves or spells like -ga2/3. Even for drk main, the elemental spells are useless.

RNG: Don't bother you have no bow skill and the sub is only good for finding things or farming things level 40 or under. In which case thf would be more viable as Treasure Hunter pawns. Even with the best range acc and ranged attack + gear a paladin could possibly equip mixed with the best ranged food. You still will rarely ever hit anything higher than Decent Challenge.

BST: Useless unless your BST is level 75. Apparently it is said that if your BST is 75 and you use it as a sub anything your try to charm success rate will be that of a BST 75. This is a nice alternative to use for solo as you can have a monster fight at your side, Providing you find one that you can charm Even Match to a level 75 or lower. Gives you killer effects for intimadtion of things your more likely to exp off of cause the undead are usually a waste of time unless your farming something off them.

Bard: Good for one thing and one thing only. Mage's Ballad and Power Leveling. Mixed with Fields of Valor and your Parade Gorget and natural auto refresh you get a nice you get 4MP/tick. very nice for PL friends or tools for profit. Constant Refresh+1 is verynice. Also when in tight places at night while in say Qufim Island PL a Foe Requim replaces provoke when pulling a link off or grabbing those pesky undead from that hot spot exp area.

Samurai: If you want the ability to spam WS more often in scenarios outside of normal exp like parties and solo work than this is the way to go. 60% TP every 3 minutes as well as Store TP mixed with Hasso (if using a Great Sword)

(If your like me you are smart and carry a dark staff for HMP resting. This also helps you trigger Hasso~>Re-equip sword and shield(effect stays) for the added STR, Acc, attack speed in exhange for longer spell casting (double i believe) as when using a 2H weapon Seigan and Third Eye acts as a physical blink with counter which is like half a ninja and half a monk. Though as samurai at level 75 the counter rate IMO from Seigan Third Eye is higher than the Job Trait from monk. Perhaps its just luck that I blocked and countered many times most often 2-3 times per Seigan Third Eye. Adds Zanshin which is nice. (heres a tip, put in a 2H weapon> Hasso> sword and shield. You now have 5 minutes of hasso for increased str and acc and 10% attack speed on a 1 handed weapon.

I only consider Samurai while in Campaign. Its great for when you are attacking a Fortification. Or someone else is holding hate. Otherwise I stick to /WAR or /DNC or even /WHM for the Reraise At lvl 59 I get about 800 per Campaign Battle using a Melee setup and subbing WHM. I hit mobs from 8 to 45 dmg.

Summoner: Largest MP pool bonus and INT/MND increase. Auto Refresh doesn't stack. Resist Silence is the only other bonus. Avators waste what little MP you think you now have.

Puppetmaster: If your into having a mini me that doesn't do much for you other than perhaps cure and remove status effects in combination to having an NPC adventuring fellow for a 3 way confusion than this is the way to go. Don't forget to bring a towel.

Dancer: This is possibly a very nice thing to have for solo use and even in certain exp/merit parties. The ability to cure yourself without use of MP is wonderful. Since those little 20TP curing waltz do as much as a Cure II and give more enmity than this is the way to go. Mixed in with drain samba and aspir samba you could go hours on this stuff. And the finishing move that is like a Provoke tips the barrel. I recall qufim level range that damn Dancer made it hard for me to keep hate. If Dancer can make it hard for a Paladin than think what the sub will do. Now granted at higher levels no matter what that dancer is doing if you can't keep hate than.....EPIC PHAIL

Blue Mage: IMO this kis the best way to get the best Defense Rating in the game. With my gear and food you get to 531 DEF. With Cocoon which = 796 for Defense. Thats something to talk about and you further inc rease your ability to take damage with Stoneskin and VIT mods from spells. Now I have yet to mention what Cure IV or Cure V will do as 531 is base defense with gear and jobs only. And I haven't even counted Defender. lets take a break and discuss Defense maximus and cocoon.

Base Defense + Protect IV/V + Defender +Rampart(15 for safety)

531 + 55/70 + 15 +25%= 751ish/770ish o.O wow

Base 531 + Cocoon= 795 <.< what what what

Base 531 + Protect V + Rampart + Cocoon = 924

This was just to show you some fancy numbers. Someone else can do this test and see about maximum defense possible.

Well that is my opinion...