When to swap to sword oath mid fight?

This isn't about tank dps. Or comparing the tanks. So please leave that in the numerous other threads devoted to it.

My question is about swapping stances as a PLD mid fight. Since it takes a GCD, I assume it'd be an immediate dps loss to do so.

Obviously between fights/when a boss disappears is optimal. But I'm talking about when you have long periods of uptime on a boss.

How many auto attacks does it take to make up the loss of the gcd. I'm not the best at theory crafting.

Well as a PLD you don't really to worry about loosing that one GCD(won't make a big impact on the fight), our job is to keep aggro over damage anyways. I just switch back and forth as I'm comfortable doing it. As long as you keep an eye on your aggro bar and you're far enough ahead on the list I'd say you're safe to switch back and forth. Keep in mind the amount of Mp you currently have also. nothing like switching stances and not being able to go back due to lack of mp, causing a wipe or disruption within the group.

Those are my 2 cents.

Last time i checked (a while ago admittedly), you needed to stay about 7-8 seconds in sword oath to cover for the loss of the GCD. If you go back to shield oath, that's two GCD, so closer to 15 seconds. And that's to break even -- if that's the case then you lost a lot of enmity generation and defense for nothing.

Ideally you want to make one of the two GCD loss with a downtime -- either ENTER or EXIT sword oath during a boss jump or when you are forced away from the boss -- in which case sword oath become a significant dps win quite quickly. If you have 100% uptime on the boss, don't bother going sword oath for less than 20 seconds.

Thanks. That is about what I was thinking going over the math roughly in my head. Just wanted to put it out there since I wasn't sure.

I'll usually only switch it up on boss fights. Usually do a half and half. First half of the fight I'll be in Shield them switch for the second half. Aggro bars usually don't go above half. Tough last night in Neverreap last boss a DRG was creeping up on me but only got about 3/4 and stayed there. Not sure if it really adds anything to the fight as the other DPS are just killing it. Though with my current gear set she'll hit for around 1900 in sword using FoF on Royal, critical well over 2000, shield lob will even hit for over 400 almost 500, without FoF up.

Honestly it's entirely dependent on how good your gear is.

Better gear = less damgage taken and more damage going out = easier time staying in Sword Oath and keeping a good lead. After a certain gear threshold you can actually just start a fight in Sword Oath and, with optimal rotations and the occasional Rage of Halone thrown in, keep aggro for the entire fight.

When you've gained a substantial hate lead. Best time to aim for it is during phases where a boss is doing something so you can't hit them. Current good example is in Alexander Floor 3, where the boss changes shapes.

I'm quite surprised that no one has suggested on turning off shield oath. Activating sword oath while on shield oath eats up a gcd while turning off shield oath wont. I usually do that when i am about to unleash a FoF Goring Blade. Basically, you start off with shield oath on then fast blade, then riot blade, activate fof and deactivate shield oath then goring blade into CoS then activate shield oath again.

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Originally Posted by rawker

I'm quite surprised that no one has suggested on turning off shield oath.

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Exactly this. Paladin has the advantage of a "third stance".
All sword oath adds over no oath at all is an extra 50 potency attack every auto attack.
To take advantage of that extra 50 potency in lieu of the single GCD, you need to be able to attack in sword oath for at least four auto attacks (8.xx seconds depending on weapon delay) to even come close to the average potency of what your accumulated skills would have been to that point.
If there's a very brief (10 seconds for example) vulnerability or burn phase, it is definitely worthwhile to drop shield oath and take advantage of all your weapon skills full potencies.

So as a guideline, 4 or less GCD's you would likely just drop shield oath, 5 or more GCD's and sword oath will have gained ground back.

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Originally Posted by Whiston

All sword oath adds over no oath at all is an extra 50 potency attack every auto attack.

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Wait what. All the rage the past couple weeks was maximizing tank DPS and how low PLD DPS is. Now we're off to turning off something that adds DPS albeit a little, but as stated many times in the past more DPS!!!!!!