Dilemma!

[ScottNUMBERS]

VIT or Defense, I know they both decrease the effectiveness of enemy attacks but which is more beneficial for me as a Paladin? I try to focus on both but sometimes I find myself having to choose between the two.

[Rostum]

I dunno, you should always try and get a good balance of both. ;x

[Laguna]

From what I've been told, VIT reduces the damage from special techniques and weaponskills. Defense is your normal protection from damage.

All the way to 60 I focused my accessories on VIT+ and my armour on high defense. The only exception was my earrings, which I upgraded to Drone Earrings as soon as I could. This gave me +6 AGI, good for parry, evade and shield blocks.

Anyway, I always wore two VIT+ rings, vit +2 at 14, vit + 3 at 36. I wore a warrior's belt +1 for vit until I could wear a life belt. By the time I got all my af I had about +23vit (gluttony sword, vit rings, AF, Iron Musketeer's Gorget, Knightly Mantle, Bibiki seashell). Still, my rings have always been VIT+.

I never had any issue tanking, I'd always choose a piece of VIT+ gear over a piece of defense plus gear (ie Phalanx Rings). The kinds of armour a pld can wear have very high defense anyway, coupled with your job abilities and you'll be taking much less damage.

My thoughts on the matter anyway.

[Del Murder]

I read somewhere that each enemy has a range of damage they can deal to you. Defense determines how often they hit in the lower end of that range, while VIT determines where the range is.

I usually go for +VIT because, based on the above, it is a guarantee of less damage. Adding defense only increases the probablility of taking less damage. Of course, on average you will defintely take less with added defense too, but I feel more comfortable knowing the maximum amount an enemy can deal is lower.

Then again all this could be wrong. I think I found it on Gamefaqs.

[Vincentsinnerdemon]

I always find no matter what job I'm doing that it is best to increase the stat over the overall (i.e. STR>Attack DEX>Accuracy, ect.)

Though as MNK I don't commonly wear VIT+ gear, I do realize the increase of impact on the party when I wear DEX+ and STR+ when DDing and the occasional AGI+ and VIT+ whenever they want me to tank.

I tend to deal more damage with STR+ than Attack+ gear and hit more with DEX+ than Accuracy+. However this does not stop me from buying a Attack+ of Accuract+ piece of armor if it is the best at that moment. I'd rather wear a Defence+ gear for lvl 30 at lvl 31 than a VIT+ gear for 10 on most occasions.

Well that's just my 2 cents. Hope it helped any.

[Lionx]

From what I've been told, VIT reduces the damage from special techniques and weaponskills. Defense is your normal protection from damage.

I do not believe this is true. There are two types of weapon skills to my knowledge, physical and magical. Defense and VIT are physical and the elemental resistances are magical.

Defense factors in the monster's ATK, and compares it with your DEF to determine damage. I forget exactly, but a friend PLD of mine tested something similar to this, a monster will not go beyond a certain damage on normal hits because thats where his ATK caps out on vs your DEF excluding TP moves.

Del Murder: I think that is wrong...

In any case there is a soft cap on Defense, in which VIT can only then further the decrease in damage you get. Think Defense in terms of Attack, Accuracy, and Evasion stats; and VIT along STR, DEX, and AGI respectively. You can increase the natural stat fine, but after a while it will soft cap, and only by increasing the related stat, will increase it any more. Hence the balance between Acc and DEX along ATK and STR.

In general i find that adding +ATK and +Acc to have more raw power over the base stats, only then filling out the rest with VIT or DEX. Tbh i find adding DEX over Acc to be stupid as i notice little if any difference, STR is more noticible as Weapon Skills usually have STR as a secondary modifier. However once you reach that soft cap(usually i think..around +40..?) i would go with +DEX or something for more Acc.

[Rostum]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't VIT used to reduce the amount of damage a critical hit does, as well as raise your defense slightly?

I've haven't been a VIT whore since I was level 40 or so. Now I just use DEF+, HP+ and -physical damage, so I've never really questioned anything abotu VIT.

[Lionx]

I would guess it would, since it reduces damage in general it would make sense to work on crits too, however i wouldnt know =/ You can try testing this out by putting and taking off mass ammounts of VIT off a mob.

[Rostum]

I think what I meant to say was, that it reduces the amount of critical hits a mob does to you. Maybe due to how much VIT you have against whatever stat the mob has (would have to ask Armando about that one).

[Lionx]

I believe it was tested that AGI affects the lowering of critical hits.

[Rostum]

I believe it was tested that AGI affects the lowering of critical hits.

Source?

[Lionx]

Ah damnit i read it a while ago..i dont have an exact source but this thread has Armando saying something about it if it means anything:

http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/paladin/57579-defense-vit-hp-vit.html?highlight=AGI+Critical

If i find it i will post it.