Blubbers Mad Adders replied

580 weeks ago

Hey guys, just thought I'd post some tips we've picked up so far that you probably already know about. I usually go WHM or PLD so most of these are tips for those classes.

For gear, we found using http://xivdb.com/ and searching by ilvl 80+ is the best way to find best in slot pvp gear.


Purify - One of the best uses of purify is when they have multiple summoners and you have 6+ dots and debuffs on you. Purify removes all of them and can make the difference when you are getting heavily focuses, especially as a healer where you usually get woken up out of sleep quickly as is. You can also use your purify on a party member.


Healers - We've found stacking VIT accessories to be much more effective as healers tend to get focused first and the decrease in healing potency (~20%) isn't that bad at all. There are a few accessories that give both VIT and DET or VIT and CRIT, the only accessory that gives both is the garuda ex tank ring. PvP tank accessories are actually a decent option here.

As a Seawolf Roegadyn with full VIT accessories, one tank in the party for group VIT buff (+200 hp), VIT Spec, and Pineapple Ponzecake or Mulled Tea for food, you have roughly 5800 hp and you can survive melee LB's for breakfast. The most satisfying feeling is watching them waste a melee LB and then you just swiftcast yourself back to full hp. Higher hp also means your natural regen rate will be higher which can help in a long battle.

For the rest of the gear we've found stacking Spell Speed and then Determination the most effective as a white mage, the most important thing is getting your cast off before they can interrupt you.

When you get focused it can be useful to hit sprint and line of sight them around a corner, there's actually a place at manors you can run around and then fluid aura the first guy that follows you off the cliff after you heal up. I've also found it helps being conservative on when to use attunement and benediction, the worst feeling is using these skills too late and wasting them.


Paladin - I run with full STR spec and stack as much gear with DET/CRIT then skill speed as possible (parry is completely worthless). There is actually an accuracy cap of 363 for physical dps, so leaving a couple pieces with accuracy to hit that cap can be useful. I usually use buttons in a blanket for the CRIT/DET bonus and because it's cheap.

I only use shield oath when running away or solo holding a point against 2+ guys just stalling until someone comes to help.

Icarus Wings instantly restore 300 tp and I am literally the only person on our server that buys them. If i check every 3-4 days there's almost always 30+ up for sale for 17 gil on the marketboard and I just buy all of them out. Super useful when you're shield bashing or when you need to sprint after a runner, Sprint + Enliven + Icarus wing = they're in trouble.

Cover is great, especially on BLM's who can triple flare or healers getting focused. Tempered will is good for holding a point when you see a healer coming in as they are most likely going to try to knock you back and sleep you.


ACT hp overlay If you use ACT and enable the HP overlay, you can see how much hp they have. Often there is at least 1 healer with significantly lower hp than the others, so you can mark this guy and burn him quickly.


That's all I can think of for now, we haven't played around with marauders yet but I saw you guys were using them effectively, that's definitely the next thing we are going to experiment with.

Favor Admin replied

580 weeks ago

Great writeup! Thanks, Blubbers.

A lot of the things you've mentioned we've figured out/have been doing as well, so it's nice to see we're on a similar wavelength. I can't say I've thought about saving purify for stacked SMN dots though.

With the min-maxing, the secondary stat's potency, when translated to the a jobs primary stats varies, according to testing thats been done. The gear calculator is a great tool, but since you can't use the BiS calculator for a ilevel cap, here's something I made for our FC members. It helps me a lot, so maybe it will be use to anyone else reading.

(Copying the post from our member forum)
Get it here.

I wrote a quick application that calculates the secondary stat values into a job's primary stat. This helps with quickly comparing two pieces of gear when trying to figure out which will offer up more raw power. IE compare str vs str, rather than having to consider det/crit/ss. This application does not consider accuracy, or suggest a full bis build. If you want that, go to the gear calculator.

Anyway, this little tool helps me pick stuff out while building a set. Figured I'd post it in-case it would help anyone else!

P.S. Secondary stat weights are based off of the generally accepted, tested values. The same values are used in the ariyala calculator.

P.S.S. If you didn't know, the secondary stat weights varry job to job. For example, Spell speed for a SMN is worth only .094 INT, whereas on BLM it's valued at .258 INT.

I play MRD myself, and can attest to it's power in there. War only offers up job abilities that shouldn't be used in pvp, whereas mrd gives you access to raging strikes (20% damage buff), protect, stoneskin, swiftcast (swift->stoneskin = ~600hp shield, add that to ur already large repertoire of self heals), and straight shot (10% crit chance), and of course Invigorate, for more sprint + smashing action.

Blubbers Mad Adders replied

580 weeks ago

Awesome, I'll check out the gear calculator when I get home from work! I'm definitely going to have to give marauder a go, I've got all the cross-class skills ready and I can re-use most of the gear from my paladin, I just need to farm for the levi axe to complete the set. 19 kills and 100k+ damage is RIDICULOUS!

I got lucky and just got my Earrings of Divine Wisdom from Expert DR last night after frontlines, so I'm getting pretty close to my optimal set…

We're planning on running coil tonight but I'll let you guys know if we hop on after.

Favor Admin replied

580 weeks ago

I'm two pieces away from the build I'm going for. Still need the ultima slaying neck and ramuh slaying ring. My character is on it's frontline gear now if ur curious.

Though, I hadn't looked into the acc cap yet, having never noticed missing, I may need to rethink just a little. My current setup has 370 acc, but thats before the sync. I'll have to throw ACT up and see if I'm missing at all next time we're in FL.

Favor Admin replied

580 weeks ago

Do you have a reference for the acc cap btw? I've read other people saying there is no accuracy required and everything will land 100%.

Blubbers Mad Adders replied

580 weeks ago

Source on the accuracy cap is from the FFXIV PvP Forums, a super active PvPer named Koltik did some work on it (there's another post somewhere where he's looking through a parse he did). Even at 363 accuracy blind gives a fixed chance of missing, so keep that in mind if you're reviewing a parse on ACT.

I saw you mentioned protect above, according to this Dev post defense is completely ignored in Frontlines, although it's definitely still useful to have protect up so that one-ilm-punch and glory slash have a chance of removing it instead of something useful.

Awesome gear btw! I'll swap into my tank gear before I log tonight to show you what I've got (was mass producing pineapple ponzecakes before I went to bed), it's basically the exact same left hand side as you except I don't have the ST/i80 boots yet. I definitely need to start farming ultima and ramu to help finish off my right hand side.

Also for fun the other day we tried to see how high we could get a healer's hp to be. With HQ Mulled tea, Roegadyn VIT spec, tank accessories, WAR in party, Thrill of War, and a HQ mega-VIT potion we got 8302, although using pineapple ponzecake and HQ VIT X-Potion I think we could get a lot higher.

Favor Admin replied

580 weeks ago

Wow, good stuff, thanks for the links. Bummer about foresight being useless, though… Guess I'll be taking those off my bars lol

Favor Admin replied

580 weeks ago

I definitely need to start farming ultima and ramu to help finish off my right hand side.Blubbers

Transfer to Balmung, we'll farm with you :o

Blubbers Mad Adders replied

580 weeks ago

Ultima HM Duty Finder is so dead, I bet we could just queue up at the same time and it'd match us everytime haha
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