The Divine Protector: PLD Guide 2025

Point your attention to the shield size part of this page. Block rate and % of damage blocked is huge.

Ochain 90
* 40 DEF
* no shield skill
* 60% damage reduction on block
* 108% proc rate with skill
* Converts 25% of blocked damage to MP
* Net DT reduction = 60%

Duban stage 2
* 145 DEF
* 125 shield skill
* 60% damage reduction on block
* ~138% proc rate with skill
* 15% MDTII
* 25 MEva
* Net DT reduction = 60%

Srivatsa
* 150 DEF / HP / MP
* 129 Shield Skill
* 75% damage reduction on block
* 80% proc rate with skill
* 15 Enmity
* 8% DT
* 5% Annuls damage
* Net DT reduction = 1 - (1 - 0.75 * 0.8) * (1 - 0.05) = 62%



The true proc rate varies based on your attacker's combat skill, which is why it's valuable to have a nominally >100% proc rate. It's also nice to have 100% of hits be blocked for consistency reasons (no spikes) and to reduce interruptions, although people tend to use SIRD sets now. Also, Shield Defense Bonus (maybe 2 damage off each hit) applies to any block equally. As soon as Srivatsa's proc rate drops below 77% (any real content) it has less net DT than the other two shields, although 5% of its damage reduction is pretty unique and works when you're turned around.

You can see that Duban stage 2 blows the other options out of the water in any endgame tanking situation. Aegis is better than it for magic damage.

Stage2 also has the Slowly devours your soul: -1hp and -1mp per tic. Its really good for most PLD content since you can't be slept and with majesty can wake the rest of the party as needed.

Aegis handles most of PLDs endgame and Stage2 Duban handles the rest.

I do use Srivatsa for kiting in Sortie and casting majesty protect.

I see you list things like MEVA on Duban at rank 2 but I don't understand where that comes from. The rank 2 shield only has defense and shield skill on it. Are the other stats hidden?

That's stage3, not stage2.

Stage2 is +118 shield skill, big size shield and ilvl. Stage2 compared to stage3 lacks the def, mdt and meva.

Stage 2 gives it the same base block rate as ochain (>108~%) but also adds 118 shield skill so its even higher than ochains block rate, with +100 def ontop of that thus replacing it almost entirely unless you wanted the mp conversion

I'm working on my Burtgang trials and as advertised they suck. What atma do you use to speed them up?

I think the key is getting the mob to ~5% HP with the auto-attacks that bring you up to 1k TP. I experimented with different atma/weapon setups until I was able to do this semi-reliably. I'd still kill mobs every once in a while when I double attacked or got a crit or something, but I could get maybe 70% of them and it was quite quick to get one down, so even if I murdered one by accident it wasn't a great loss.

I think in an ideal world: find some setup with another character that brings a group of mobs to low HP, like a BLU or BLM spell, and then AOE all of them to a low HP, melee an NM and Atonement each one of those guys down one at a time.

Maybe it is time for . . . Ullr?!?!

You could probably do something silly like PLD/BLM these days and nuke them to the right HP yourself, then switch to Burt, build 1000TP on each, and Atonement for the kill.

I mean, yeah, that's what I'm doing. My question was "what atma did you use"?

I have no idea, it was like 4-5 years ago at this point.

I would assume all regain stuff to start (Sea Daughter, VV, Perfect Attendance), then if I found myself having too much TP by the time the mob was low, switch a regain to a DD one (Gnarled Horn, Razed Ruins, Sanguine Scythe) until that balance was hit.

IIRC I was using Burtgang (duh) with sub of Reikiko. I'm 90% certain the OH was an ilvl weapon.

Also has been years for me, but I think I used a GEO mule to lower their HP pretty far and then used Burtgang and a borrowed K-club to finish them off. Non-iLevel Burt and K-club both hit for ***, so it was super effective.

I don't think there's a particular atma combo for doing it the melee way that's going to make it notably better. You don't want high damage/hit or a lot of multiattack, so RR/SS/Apoc are out if you're using an iLevel offhand. You can't one-shot them with regain only, so that regain + slow one is out. You're probably already capped attack and fSTR because the base damage is low and you're at level 99, so pumping STR and Atk won't really matter. Maybe just do crit rate without crit damage if it doesn't make your single attack rounds hit too high with whatever your offhand is?

Alternatively, you could use Razed Ruins/Scorpion Queen/Gnarled Horn for critical hit rate and use a kind of gimpy offhand so you don't have to worry about a single attack round doing more damage than Atonement.

If you're fighting mobs in abyssea, use high accuracy armor without multi-attack and with as much enmity gear as you can find, and off-hand a level 1 all jobs dagger. Make sure to keep Crusade up. The Enmity increases will increase the damage of atonement and lack of damage from the off-hand will ensure you can get a killshot below 8% hp remaining.

You will kill a bit slower, but with a much higher rate of success on the ws kill. The key here is to quickly remove/re-equip burtgang between kills to prevent aftermath from proccing multi-hit as the monster is approaching death.

Just wear low eva gear, pull like 30 mobs into a corner, and abuse the morbillion tp/sec from blocking.

I usually just use crit atmas so my melee hits quickly whittle the enemy down to ~10% life so I can WS to finish them.

You'll go from 0 to 3000 tp incredibly fast, so all that matters is just how fast you can get the enemy from 100% down to ~10%

what does everyone use for aminon Knights of Round set? my acc was some dogshit tonight - using Miso Ramen +1 but could switch back to Omelette Sandwich or Behemoth Sandwich?

i believe it's been discussed, but there is not much difference in regards to KoR vs Imperator for Aminon dmg correct? im expecting to do like 5% total or less lol just wondering how i can help more or possibly make it more fun

I use Omelett Sandwich, dont forget Enlight II unless you use it.
Easymode I see KoR between 35-40k, Hardmode 25-30k.

Just cleared my trials last week, stayed in a normal DD set with Sakpata and DA, swapped out my rings, neck and body with, Apeile, Moonlight and Souveran.

Atonement reliably 1 shot around 15% HP all mobs, with a Flash on pull at around 1k damage.

Stayed in Abyssea for all kills.

What are your buffs for HM? I'm lucky if I see 20k, more avg around 10-15k on HM.

20-30k on normal.

Standard buffs, Honor March, madrigal, aria, minuet x2.
Bolster/BoG Frailty, Fury, entrust precision, DNC steps, Dia 3 and Impact.
An important part ppl overlook is WS walling, it drops average Ws DMG a lot. Everyone needs to ws and land it. Check that everyone is over 95% ws acc. Geo tends to have issues.

I know it is not popular but I swapped to using Imperator with a stage 3 prime sword; will make the stage 4. Imperator does ~35k on Aminion hard and ~45k on normal @1750 TP with Moonshade. MP is never an issue and the regen is null considering Pld is the healer anyhow.

I think we use 2x madrigal on Aminon,
with KoR I max out around 34k on Easy Mode and about 23k on HM. I do go /SCH. some other subs maybe add some more DPS, howevever I think the buffs /SCH can put on the people running Naegling to increase their DPS far outweighs /RUN. I storm/regen/klima/holy circle the bard and cor.

I'm /SCH typically as well - what benefit is there to /RUN? Just Foil really?

So you are switching from light and dark arts to manifest klimaform and accession voidstorm for the party?
I also keep enlight on for the bit of accuracy to help land KoR.

/RUN gets you 3 Enmity JAs and Foil if MLed enough.

I think /SCH was originally for multiboxers for sneak/invis.

My current Aminon record is 565k in damage on PLD. KoR around 38k with spikes in the 40s.

It can be used as a safety net for people who aren't 100% confident in holding hate, but it really isn't needed, but /SCH is likely providing more for min/max purposes - see the above post.

Also 2 Madrigal seems like the better play imo. extra minuet isn't doing much. Bolster/Bog Geo Frailty (-40% DEF down), Box steps (23% DEF down), Dia 3 + Light shot (around 23% DEF down) + HM, Min 5 and Indi fury is far beyond enough attack to abuse any PDL. So you'll likely gain more overall with the extra Acc, especially for GEO, or PLD without Enlight.

This sounds like someone is slacking, or the fight is dragging on longer than it should, for a PLD to get that many WSs off; still nice numbers nonetheless.

We are pretty min/maxed at this point. Pretty sure I had 13 WSs that fight. I also Savage blade twice after Wing/Volte.

I found s similar parse where I did 545k:
DNC 1670236 17 WSs 97930
COR 1328410 22 WSs 60379
RDM 795044 11 WSs 72258
BRD 725409 12 WSs 60450
PLD 545331 13 WSs 41781
GEO 342064 7 WSs 48797

That's still 1-2 more WSs than normal for a <5 minute Aminon kill from pull is all. Check who is slacking and fire them. We don't allow slack around these parts ;p

On a side note, I think if you got the 6 most optimal Sortie players on each respective job, I think you could probably get a <3:45 minute kill from pull. Not <3:45 minute from start of dps. Would be interesting to see.

Edit:
Yeah yo DNC slackin. They ain't elite enough for ffxiah. Off to the Gulag.

3:50 is our record from Pull. Edit: since it matters we pull with 11 Tact and songs done.

How many WSs does your DNC pull in a 4-4:30min kill? He's the best DNC I've played with and I've played with a quite a few in 9 boss.

Edit2: I found the 3:52 kill time parse.

DNC 1705187 17x99999
COR 1410687 23x61331
RDM 843769 10x84358
BRD 694057 11x63096
PLD 423381 10x42178
GEO 407937 9x45241

19-20 for that kill speed.

Edit: Also yo GEO slackin too, tf. 7 WS!