Sword Oath or Shield Oath?

As a PLD, which would you say is more useful? Or does it just depend on the situation?

To be honest, I don't think I ever used Sword Oath. Shield Oath seems to be way more useful, but only for dungeons and such where you need to tank.

I never use either of them out in the open world.

It's situational. Shield Oath should be on by default whenever you are tanking content. Once you reach lvl50 there will be 8man content that requires two tanks to swap aggro on the boss (using provoke). In these cases, you should swap to Sword Oath when you are not actively tanking the boss.

In open world content I typically use Sword Oath.

Shield Oath is ideal if you are main tanking and as a form of damage mitigation. Sword Oath boosts your auto-attack, but it can be a surprisingly good amount of dps.

For most party content, you will be using Shield Oath if you are tanking. If you are OT and are not picking up adds (usually Primals), you will use Sword Oath. In the new Expert dungeons (Stone vigil & hullbreaker), there will be some bosses that can't be tanked. Swordoath is preferable for those fights when you can fight them.

Shield Oath when you tank, Sword Oath when you don't.

Alright, thanks.

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Originally Posted by Riepah

Shield Oath when you tank, Sword Oath when you don't.

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To add to this:
-Don't ever go Oathless.
-If it's a 1-tank fight, don't be in Shield Oath at all if you're not main tanking.
-Swap Oaths when tank swapping (be aware that this "breaks" your current combo).