Pulling as PAL

[Tsubaki75]

Everyone pretty much covered the major points, keep in mind though that at lvl 64 you are pretty much at the limit of how effective you are wearing shire gear. It is possible to keep leveling with it but you will most likely be grossly out geared by both your healer and dd's, and will have to work a lot harder to both hold hate and mitigate damage.

[SleepyNeko]

Just trash pull in Shield Oath with face pull into flash hitting all 3 mobs, no reason to use sword because the 20% extra damage you get is not worth the healer (especially SCH)'s AoE dps. PLD basically never pulls in Sword because they have very bad enmity generators, even with a NIN in the group if you pull in sword the BRD's going to pull the boss off you in 20-30 seconds.

[ArianeEwah]

There are a few requirements before even thinking to not be in Shield Oath while tanking trash mobs.

• You are overgeared: Your level and gear are synced down, thus providing maximum VIT, STR, secondary stats and defense
• You know your CD rotation: This includes knowledge of trash mobs as well, how much/far to pull, surroundings etc.
• Your healer doesn't dps: If your healer is purely healing - imo feel free to use that opportunity to switch to DPS stance - as long as you can take on the incoming damage
• You are out-dps'ing the DPS and/or healer: I've done more than enough dungeon runs this was the case. As long as you don't die to trash, feel free to unleash your power and leave your DPS mates in disgrace and dust.

You should still pull in Shield Oath. Flash a few times (up to 3 should do it) then switch into Sword Oath if necessary. Shield Oath doesn't reduce the "power" of Flash, that way you get full Flash aggro multiplied by your tank stance enmity bonus. Even that 1 GCD lost by switching to Sword Oath is worth the gained enmity 'cause you'll spend less time fighting for aggro (also DPS loss).

On a side note: Meld STR into your accessories! The highest meld possible - on 50 Grade 4, on 60 Grade 5, on 70 Grade 6 Materia. This is your highest DPS - and enmity - boost. They are pretty cheap on most servers or you might've some leftovers from story, dungeon drops or converting gear.
FYI 1 STR meld is 4 to 8 times more powerful than 1 Crit/Det/DH meld!

Also upgrade your gear from iLvl 260 non-augmented to iLvl 270 augmented, and take any additional dungeon drop (except Sirensong Sea, also iLvl 260). Especially from iLvl 270 to 290 the defense value rise a lot!

[Aomine1992]

As others have said for trash I would pull in Sheild oath, other tanks can do otherwise but PLD doesn’t have the dps for that mainly ape wise. If you rather play your playstyle I would switch to warrior who honestly can run the whole dungeon in deliverance with little issue.

[whiskeybravo]

I don't play PLD too often but I actually did a full sword oath run with my friends the other day, of course they were trolling me half the time.. But.. I think if you want to pull this off smoothly in Sword (which I personally wouldn't recommend for DF) the key is just asking them to not attack between pulls. Ideally even if they did pull hate on the pull they would run toward you so the lose mobs could get picked up in the flash spam. But that's the key, leave them alone long enough so they can be gathered and flashed a couple of times, then burn them down with aoe.

[AleXwern]

This. The benefit you gain from Sword Oath is pretty insignificant for trash pulls. In fact, outside of hard content, Sword Oath isn't that useful at all. Tanks tanking in their DPS stance is only really beneficial for content with DPS checks.

DPS stance not being beneficial in trash is pretty much a PLD only thing. DRK and especially WAR can pull absolutely ludicrously high numbers in big packs. Inner Release is one of the highest damage spikes in the entire game in single target and many times so in big packs as AoE.

[Derio]

Shield oath for trash mobs sword oath for bosses problem solved

[Noldornir]

Shield oath for trash mobs sword oath for bosses problem solved

That's what i'm doing now,

I suppose that the main difference is in the skill I'm using since lvl 60;

In lvl 50 Activities I use sword oath all time (only combo available to me generates aggro) so I usually just:

Shield Lob nearest target (and lock onto it for autoattacks)
they all come (mobs are usually in groups of 3/4 at least)
I flash once when they are all in range then Circle of Scorn
Fast blade on target 1 then spirits within
Savage blade on target 2 (for some aggro)
Rage of Halone on target 3 (for some aggro)
then it depends on situation (start over from flash if they are still 3+)

This usually keeps aggro pretty well, while for bosses i pull in shield oath (1-2 Rage of Halone combo to build aggro upfront then swap to sword stance the whole time).

In LvL 60+ I behave in a completely different manner:

Shield Stance always (but during bosses)
The tactics looks similiar to the one above but instead of spreading out Savage Blade/RoH I spread out Goring Blade (rarely have a chance to use Royal Authorithy in non-bosses so) so it looks like:

Shield Lob on T1
Flash when they come -> Scorn
Fast Blade-> Spirits Within -> Riot Blade on T1
Goring Blade on T2 (T1 is usually about to die by now and GB would be mostly wasted on it)
Fast Blade->Riot Blade on T2 (which is about to die by now)
Goring Blade on T3

I still need to unlock Requiescat so i'm not using holy spirits much ATM (I keep it for when i cant be near the target like during an AoE charge time, i evade AoE than Gatling-Holy Spirit the caster).

Dunno if this is good approach tho or if i could optimize more

EDIT:
For those not using a controller: we can "select" a target without locking it in order to deliver it one skill without changing the main target (I think it's similar to the "/MO" command used in macros) so when i "spread out" skills like RoH or GB i'm keeping my autos on the original target

[Sapphidia]

Dunno if this is good approach tho or if i could optimize more

I don't see you mentioning Total Eclipse in that, your AOE spammy damage move that you get at 46.

Generally speaking for Trash Pulls you just stay in Shield Oath, Shield Lob one target, Circle of Scorn and Flash early, and just spam Total Eclipse. It's 110 damage to all mobs, so for 3+ mobs you'll do more dps just spamming Eclipse than doing any single target combos. Throw in the occasional Flash between Eclipse spam to ease the TP load and then when there's only two mobs left swap to doing single target stuff. Obviously weave off gcds in like Shield Swipe, Circle and Spirits Within as they pop up.

[Noldornir]

I don't see you mentioning Total Eclipse in that.

You are right, i already do that (while enemies are 4 or more) it's just i'm so dumb that I forgot to mention it.

When you say 3+ do you mean "three OR more" or "more than three?"