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KatraJun. 04, 2011 Edit Quote Permalink
I have a question over Gladiator that I was hoping someone with a bit more experience than I could answer; plus I thought it would be nice to have it out here on the forums for other would be Gladiators. Also, I thought it would be nice to start a discussion in the Class forum.

When you have a shield equipped, you have access to the Guard command. Unlike what I was expecting, Guard will not prevent you from taking other actions for a set amount of time. Actually, you can still use both regular attacks, weapon skills, and at least Phalanx (only lv 16 right now, so there may be more to come).

My ultimate question is then, is there any reason not to have Guard up while engaging the enemy, outside of getting tired of clicking onto Guard every 10 seconds or however long it last? I notice no reduction in offense, or in movement speed when pursuing a fleeing enemy. I may just be looking for some sort of counterbalance that doesn't exist for using the ability, but I was just curious if I was overlooking something.
Bongo Bongo Jun. 04, 2011 Edit Delete Quote Permalink

not sure why its there!

think it may reduce damage or something or have something linked to shield ability's?

my Gld is only lvl 6 or something so i dont know anything
Funky Scherzo Jun. 04, 2011 Edit Delete Quote Permalink

I think that you just have to use it for the stance change. That way you can use Phalanx directly after a successfully guarding an attack. But I'm not sure if that is the only way to guard an attack. As of right now, I see no disadvantage of keeping Guard up while fighting.
Leholy Jun. 04, 2011 Edit Delete Quote Permalink

My guess is utilizing stamina strategically. If you consume all your stamina blocking every attack, at a certain point you won't have enough to block the hard-hitting attacks (eg. 1000 needles from cactuars).
Katra Jun. 04, 2011 Edit Delete Quote Permalink

Thank you for the replies everyone.

I was thinking about this question right after I logged off last night after playing around with Guard around the Silver Bazaar area. I was actually staying away from it because I thought I would take a hit in attack power, kinda like how Berserker and Defender worked in XI, but to my surprise I noticed no reduction whatsoever.

I think that you just have to use it for the stance change. That way you can use Phalanx directly after a successfully guarding an attack. But I'm not sure if that is the only way to guard an attack. As of right now, I see no disadvantage of keeping Guard up while fighting.

After playing around with it for a while, it does seem to be the only way to guard against an attack with your shield, which is needed to use Phalanx; at least at these low levels.

The stamina drain doesn't seem all that bad, but that is a good point, Leholy. A slight hit in Stamina seems to be the only negative outside of having to click into it after it wears of every 10 seconds or so. If I stick with the job long enough, I will be able to learn Self-Preservation which will increase the Guard stance duration by 50%, so that will help a bit I imagine.

But yeah, after playing around with it a little more today, before the server decided I needed a break, I don't see anything other than stamina being negatively impacted.
Katra Jun. 09, 2011 Edit Delete Quote Permalink

I found a nice little Gladiator guide at Zam. It is not posted to a wiki or a formal guide, it was actually buried in the Gladiator forums, but it is pretty nice.

http://ffxiv.zam.com/forum.html?forum=175&mid=128616961642549340&page=1

Hope this helps any up and coming Gladiators.
Bongo Bongo Jun. 09, 2011 Edit Delete Quote Permalink

^^ another nice find

been avoiding Glad as i overused it in FFXI

always tempted to go back to getting hit by things for a living
Bongo Bongo Jun. 09, 2011 Edit Delete Quote Permalink

one thing i cant find is info on the types of shield and what the differences are between them performance wise

will have another look later and post what i find out ^^

Don't know if you ever found the info you were looking for on shields, Bongo, but I found something that may help you and/or others.

http://ffxiv.zam.com/forum.html?forum=175&mid=12921198889779323

The link is to the Zam forums and it is from a poster who describes what the stats attached to a shield do for performance. The part I found most fascinating is below. The information was given by a poster named F3rth.

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Stats:

Shields have 4 stats, Defense, Attack, Blocking and Wield Rate.


Attack: Attack really only effects one thing, and that is how much damage your shield will do with abilities like Shield Bash.

Defense: Defense is a bit misleading. For one thing, most of you might have noticed that when you equip a shield it doesn't actually alter your defense rating. That is because the defense listed on your shield would more accurately be described as Damage Mitigation. And so far it seems to be a static number. Meaning that when you have a shield with a defense rating of 16 (sheepskin leather targe) it actually blocks 16 damage from an incoming frontal attack. So basically, the higher defense your shield has the less damage you will take when you block, in a direct 1:1 ratio.(If anyone has proof that this is inaccurate, please let me know.)

Blocking: Blocking mostly seems to be a % chance that your block will succeed. The lower the value the greater risk you run of having your block fail.

Wield Rate: Wield Rate reflects how long your Guard will last. It is a direct 1:1 ratio, so Bronze Scutum with its wield rate of 10 will have a Guard duration of 10 seconds, Whereas Bronze Pelta with it's wield rate of 13 will have a Guard duration of 13 seconds.
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Hope this helps, and good luck to all of the Gladiators out there.

I saw this in the update notes on patch 1.19 and thought of this thread.

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[dev1032] The action "Guard" has been abolished.
Blocking with a shield is automated, with the block rate determined by a number of factors, including shield stats.

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Guard is gone. Granted, I haven't leveled Gladiator since I took up Archer (may come back to it once I get Archer to 50), but I still thought of this thread once I came across the note.

this should effect my wielding a shield as a CON woot… err "CNG" forgot they changed the abbreviation