Paladin Tank Gear and Best in Slot — Dawntrail 7.4

If you prefer to save gil and not pentameld, simply follow the melding guide. Below you can find several sets depending on how many Tomestones you want to commit to early gearing. For all sets, Caramel Popcorn is the best-in-slot food option, though Mate Cookie can be used as a cheap alternative until market prices go down.

The full crafted gearset is only recommended for those players who plan on playing the raid tier after release with limited access to the new currency. Eventually you'll want to buy tome gear for the extra item level increasing health and DPS.

The 1350 set also known as the 3-Week set is mostly for the early bird Week 1 / RWF players, with no time to farm up additional Tomestones.

These gear sets can only be acquired by completing the AAC Heavyweight (Savage) along with upgrading your Tomestone gear.

Portions of this gear set can only be acquired by completing the Abyssos raid tier. A guide for the content can be found in the link below.

• 645 and 665 relics are identical (due to stat sync).
• If you do not own the Ultimate weapon, use the item-level 645 or 665 relic sword (with Crit + Det > Ten) and replace the dungeon ring with the item-level 660 tome ring.

Portions of this gear set can only be acquired by completing the Asphodelos raid tier. A guide for the content can be found links below.

• 645 and 665 relics are identical (due to stat sync).
• If you do not have the Ultimate sword, use the 645 or 665 relic sword (with Crit + Det > Ten).

• Any gear shown in the gearset at above item level 475 can be any piece with Critical Hit and Determination at or above item level 600. These pieces will be down-synced so melds do not matter.
• It is not recommended to farm for the dungeon, savage, and old tome pieces if you do not already own them, since the difference between using them and just using down-synced high-item-level gear is approximately 10 dps (less than 0.5%).
• Using the Shadowbringers relic is about 3% better than using a down-synced Critical Hit and Determination weapon. Whether that is worth the very long grind is up to you.

It is highly recommended to just down-sync crit+det gear at high enough item level (at least 500 for UWU and 470 for UCoB). If you have the Shadowbringers relic weapon, cap substats in the order Critical Hit → Determination → Tenacity → Skill Speed. The sword substat caps are 97 for UWU and 91 for UCoB, while the shield caps at 39 for UWU and 36 for UCoB.