PLD: Do you tank with Sword Oath on? I do.

Doing trash pulls in sword oath is dumb, here's why: the optimal way to do trash pulls is to pull everything and flash until out of mp; whatever single target damage you can do is irrelevant to the time it takes to kill the pull as long as your party is doing AoE. Because flash does no damage, you're only outgoing damage during this time is circle of scorn, and your autoattacks, which are in this case, inconsequential. Flashing in sword oath means you get less aggro out of your full MP bar, with nothing in return. Sword oath all day in raids, primals, or dungeon bosses, put out that 400+ dps, but not trash pulls. Paladin's inability to significantly contribute to dps on trash pulls is also the reason that warrior is preferable for speedrunning dungeons.

If you want dungeon damage get hybrid accs and put on an axe. Still get enough HP for absurd pulls, also get epic damage with over power, main, unchained, zerk, bloodbath and i90 melded accs.

There's not much benefit for pld to drop their hp and def and pull 10 mobs only to spam 0 dps flash. Or worse do small pulls and single target.

If you find yourself doing Itty bitty pulls, then sure dps gear and sword oath, but you should really be looking for ways to pull more mobs instead. Defiance off on the forced small pulls, defiance, OP, and offensive buffs for big pulls.

Pld is in a weird spot. Big pulls it's all flash so tank up. Small pulls you could sword oath and dps you should avoid. Solution: war and hybrid accs.

There's actually a lot of benefit to drop the hp for str, just not for dropping shield oath, I would use rubies or i130 str all day if I ever lost my mind and did a dungeon on pld.

I typically only run Sword Oath on HM Primals and low risk single target battles. the big thing I'm seeing and I have been doing myself since Jan of last year is PLD moving away from stacking vit.

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Originally Posted by Martin_Arcainess

Yoho all, this is just more of wondering if anyone else dose this too but I consider myself quite good at Tanking and keeping so one day I decided if I load my PLD with STR gear and stick Sword Oath on would I still be able to Tank 2.5 dungeons ok? The answer! Yes...

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If you can hold hate then do whatever you want.

Seems like a really bad idea to run with Sword Oath on anything besides a single target.

Shield Oath isn't just a damage reduction, it's also a significant boost to aggro gain. You can literally drain your entire MP bar spamming Flash, but if you're in Sword Oath it'll do about as much good as screaming obscenities at your TV and hoping the mobs can hear you.

Further more, even sans Shield Oath you're not going to do impressive damage without DPS gear. And if you're using DPS gear, you're not in tank gear which just puts even more strain on the healer. All for a few extra points of damage? Not even close to worth it. Stick to doing what tanks do best. Tanking. Sword Oath should be reserved for specific situations, not an always-on solution...

..unless you're lower than level 40 ;)

It is good thing you have reliable healer to play with on a consistent basis. Good luck trying that on a DF roulette with a random healer. Heck as it is tanks lose aggro all the time or die before they get all gazillion of their mobs as it is, and having to heal thru crap like that is just healer abuse. What is wrong with slow and steady? Wipes only slow things down. The thing I like to do when a cray-cray tank pulls big trying to force a speed run without discussion or preparation is to holy the crap out of everything, and it is icing on the cake when the all mobs die along with the tank, and I get time to recharge my MP, while the tank walks back to the group.

All I see here is an opening post with the main purpose of bragging, with a retorical question at the bottom. Of course people use situational abilities under certain situations. It's what they're there for.

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Originally Posted by IlyaKannou

Doing trash pulls in sword oath is dumb, here's why: the optimal way to do trash pulls is to pull everything and flash until out of mp; whatever single target damage you can do is irrelevant to the time it takes to kill the pull as long as your party is doing AoE. Because flash does no damage, you're only outgoing damage during this time is circle of scorn, and your autoattacks, which are in this case, inconsequential. Flashing in sword oath means you get less aggro out of your full MP bar, with nothing in return. Sword oath all day in raids, primals, or dungeon bosses, put out that 400+ dps, but not trash pulls. Paladin's inability to significantly contribute to dps on trash pulls is also the reason that warrior is preferable for speedrunning dungeons.

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here's my reason why it's ok.

You don't need to spam flash you know? I can Circle of Scorn, Flash, Fast Blade, Flash Riot Blade Flash Fast Blade, Flash Riot Blade Flash etc and still hold Aggro fine in Sword Oath. Just because you get Less Aggro from it doesn't mean your getting enough in the 1st place. Also Fight or Flight combined with Circle of Scorn really helps.

Also not all part of the dungeon you can grab like 6-9 Mobs and even then I can do fine in Sword Oath, still keep the mobs on me, be healed fine and Healer has time to DPS.

So really, Sword Oath isn't as dumb as you think it's just how the party executes it.

Have gear switches on hotbars for PLD and WAR, shield oath+ full tanking gear for large trash pulls, one click switch to DPS gear, pop sword oath for bosses. stuff like main scenario roulette I do 100% sword oath.

Shield lob, fight or flight, fast blade, weave in GCD spirits within, savage blade, weave in Circle of Scorn, Rage of Halone starter gives a massive initial boost in enmity.