Phalanx or Cocoon?Follow

Phalanx.

Defense will do little to reduce the damage you take. Phalanx + Stoneskin is the way to go.

The more you block, the faster it will go, so put a lot of Shield Skill + gear on, eva - if you can too. If you need, get a smaller shield as they block more often.

Also, find mandragoras or other kind of mnk or nin mobs to skillup from.

You could also wait until you get martial mastery as a kupoenhancement.

Thanks!

I was actually skilling on mandies as pld/sch in the boyhada tree yesterday. It was OK, but not great. I will try /rdm tonight ^^

Unfortunately, HNM is the case where having a higher defense actually DOES more for you than otherwise. Your examples are almost exactly opposite.

What happens is that a pDif is generated: mobs attack divided by your level corrected defense. Cocoon is a great way to diminish pDif, but, as you've suggested, much of the damage generated by mobs (whether HNM or not) comes from their base damage, you can only decrease it so much.

Anecdotal case in point: I leveled PLD/BLU at level 51sh. We only gained one level, but Cocoon knocked a maximum of 2 points of damage off my average from when it was on to when it wasn't. Our defense is just naturally that much higher than the mobs' attack. Since most end game mobs have higher attack, defense has a little bit more of an input on what we're able to do.

Phalanx, on the other hand, will ALWAYS deduct a raw number off your damage taken. Depending on your enhancing skill, this number will quickly outpace the 50% defense bonus.

For most cases, Phalanx >>>> Cocoon. From HNM to XP to low level mobs (who you're probably flooring pDif on, anyway, but will still hit for some damage).

If you're going to /RDM for Phalanx, capping Enhancing helps a lot with the amount of damage it will mitigate.

It can be boring, but I was able to cap it just spamming barspells (I made a few macros and just hit them over and over while watching a movie).

TBH phalanx >>>> Cocoon for any situation, cause RDM actually gives more than just a def boost. You get fast cast (which help placing spells and help recast of flash and retribution), you get a real stoneskin, you get enspells to help speed up kill, you get bio.

Meanwhile blu give plenny of abilities that won't have any real effect cause of SJ level blue magic skills.

Or SCH-or-SMN friend: Phalanxga (in the SMN's case, Diabolos + Noctoshield, though this is somewhat of a lame version).