Your Opinion: PLD And Haubergeon +1

50+ VIT isnt really such a good investment, once you hit +30 VIT your pretty much set with the exception of endgame.

I'd say go with shield torque, Raenryong is correct in saying it's the most important thing to boost if your looking for damage reduction, you can get acc from other departments (such as rings) and hauby, if your acc is still bad compensate with food if its fine then you can use tavnasian tacos to boost your damage reduction.

Be sure to negate the -agil from Hauby, it will harm your shield proc rate (maybe only slightly, still...).

The main thing people look for with a PLD in a party is that they hold hate well and don't drain the mages mp forcing them to rest and slow party down, if you avoid that really people should't complain about what gear you wear =)

I've leveled pld in exp parties as both DD and VIT, using AF body and Hauby (not +1) and from my experience there is a huge difference in damage you take. It turns you into an even bigger mp sponge. So unless you have a REALLY good whm and or a REALLY good rdm I wouldn't tank in hauby. The down time you get from having to rest mp isn't worth the extra damage you'll do on a mob. Also, if your wearing hauby to help you hold hate then you shouldn't be playing pld. If you need damage to hold hate you should work on your tanking skills IMO.

On a neck piece note, if you are using a hauby then I would go Shield Torque and Parade Gorget. Swap them in and out depending on your hp. The extra 1 tick mp refresh will help save some of your mages mp during those sponging times. (I personally almost never take off my parade gorget because i tank just about everything /nin now and hardly ever get hit.)

As for vit being useless, its far from useless from a pld.
Every two points of vit = 1 point of defense
Vit can increase the effectiveness of cure. +10 vit is roughly the equivalency of +10 healing magic.
Vit directly effects rampart.

Though as it was just said, having +40 vit does reach the useless point.

http://kanican.livejournal.com/31338.html - Dealing damage Enmity Table
http://kanican.livejournal.com/31613.html - Taking damage Enmity Table

In case you want to do some calculations your selves.

This was the point I was trying to make earlier. Let's say you take +30 per hit more dmg, you get hit 20 times before the mob dies means you take an extra 600 dmg per fight, that is a cure5 pretty much.

Even if it's half that you need another cure3/4 per fight it still adds up, some mages might not be able to keep their mp going until chain 5. That doesn't take into account and TP move by mobs like Colibri pecking move which would do more dmg too.

But, it really does depend on the situation you're in, if having DD gear on isnt hurting your party and mages are ok then go for it :)

Yeah, DD pld in exp tends to work best when mobs die fast (which you aid with); if it's slow, best to just turtle but... nobody wants a slow party and you're better off getting a faster party and DDing :p

The VIT doesn't make a huge difference to cure powers either :x Rampart is a macro thing.