Paladin Shield/Sword Oath Usage

I'm new to tanking in FF. Without a doubt, it's different than what it is in WoW, which is what I'm used to. It took me awhile to adjust from WoW's "tanks are complete defense" mindset, to changing to FF's "tanks are enmity-holding dps" mindset. Unless I've completely misunderstood what I've been researching with this.

Regardless, I've found myself enjoying paladin over warrior and drk. I've done my research on combos, rotations, how mt/ot works, and so on... But there's one thing I keep getting mixed answers on, that's causing me the most confusion.

My question is when to use shield oath, and when to use sword oath. If I'm tanking a dungeon, do I just permanently keep shield oath up for enmity, or do I use sword oath to get my gauge built up faster? If I'm main tanking a boss, do I always use shield oath... Or do I only use shield oath in times of high damage, sword oath during the rest?

I've been getting mixed answers in my research, and was hoping to finally get an answer.

There is no final answer and this would probably best described in a flow chart.

A. Can you hold threat in sword oath?
B. Can your healer keep you up in sword oath?

If you can answer yes to both A and B then sword oath. If you cannot answer yes to both A and B use shield oath. This is simplified because healer DPS does play a factor and really it will come down to feel once you notice what your healer is capable of. If your healer can keep you up in sword oath but can't DPS but can DPS while you are in Shield Oath the extra DPS may outweigh your DPS gain being in Sword Oath.

for now in the current state tank stances aka shield oath in you case are just emity buffers in practice, you use it to get a strong lead on emity at the begining and then you switch to sword oath the rest of the fight, the damage penalty they have is not worthy the 20% mitigation and you dont really need it to survive.
the exception is on dungeons when you are tanking 2 groups of adds stay on shield all the time, dont take unnecesary risk unleash they are like 2 mobs only and you are sure its worth change to sword with the hp they still have to push a bit more.

Basically what Wintersandman suggests. Use shield oath until you or comfortable/capable of not using it. As you keep playing and get a better understanding of encounters you'll naturally get better at mitigating via cooldown usage and can ease in to more aggressive tanking.

General rule of thumb would be tanking big dungeon pulls in shield, swap to sword for bosses. And in raid situations it's generally better for one of the other tanks to pull/MT while you stay in sword.

Thanks for the answers and clearing it up for me.

It'll take me time to adjust from the tanking I'm used to, but eventually I'll get it done. I just find myself thinking "Take as little damage as possible, you're not a dps" too often. As my friends say, "Just let the healer cover your health for you."

Maybe I just need to tell myself to treat shield oath like a cooldown, using it only when needed.

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Originally Posted by Forben

Thanks for the answers and clearing it up for me.

It'll take me time to adjust from the tanking I'm used to, but eventually I'll get it done. I just find myself thinking "Take as little damage as possible, you're not a dps" too often. As my friends say, "Just let the healer cover your health for you."

Maybe I just need to tell myself to treat shield oath like a cooldown, using it only when needed.

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Hi Forben. I would suggest building agroo In shield oath and after u establish it, I would then change to sword oath and pop my offensive cd to deal some dmg. You can pop some defensive cd while in sword oath to help the healer out. For me staying in shield oath is
1. mandatory when your healer struggles to heal you.
2. When you have trouble keeping agroo and the rest of the party steals agroo from you.
3. Tank swaps.


Welcome to FF14. I also was a Tank in wow Paladin. Now I'm a Warrior here and I love it.

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Originally Posted by DamianTenbe

Hi Forben. I would suggest building agroo In shield oath and after u establish it, I would then change to sword oath and pop my offensive cd to deal some dmg. You can pop some defensive cd while in sword oath to help the healer out. For me staying in shield oath is
1. mandatory when your healer struggles to heal you.
2. When you have trouble keeping agroo and the rest of the party steals agroo from you.
3. Tank swaps.

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on tank swaps? thats a thing of the past now we have shirk.

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Originally Posted by shao32

tank swaps? thats a thing of the past now we have shirk.

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No, that's wrong. Shirk is aggro control, tank swap is changing tanks because of a debuff that would deal more damage than a tank could mitigate .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Forben

Thanks for the answers and clearing it up for me.

It'll take me time to adjust from the tanking I'm used to, but eventually I'll get it done. I just find myself thinking "Take as little damage as possible, you're not a dps" too often. As my friends say, "Just let the healer cover your health for you."

Maybe I just need to tell myself to treat shield oath like a cooldown, using it only when needed.

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Other way around. When in doubt use Shield Oath when tanking.

Shield Oath reduces the damage you take, while increasing the enmity you generate which makes it easier to hold aggro. It is your tank stance.
Sword Oath increases your DPS - great for solo play, but also for dungeon encounters where you can hold aggro and stay alive even without Shield Oath.

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Originally Posted by Forben

"tanks are enmity-holding dps"

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and

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Forben

"Just let the healer cover your health for you."

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is a very bad and sadly common misunderstanding of the aggressive tanking meta. Yes, the end goal is to deal as much personal dps as possible, but you should not neglect your defense either, as that results in lower healer dps.

It is indeed usually best to leave your tank stance as soon as you've built enough enmity at the start of the fight, but while in damage stance you should be rotating your defensive cds to cover not only tank busters and cleaves, but also as many autos as possible. Part of learning an encounter as tank is figuring out when to use which cd and how much can you save by utilizing ultimate cds and tank swaps. It might be less involved than in other games, but it's still there.

It's also sometimes good to swap stance when shit hits the fan. Basically push for dps, but don't be stupid about it.