tanks are crazy tough right?

Since I've hit fiddy, I've had a ton of content open up to me, so the learning has been slow in some places, quicker and others. Downed all the new dungeons with few problems though Pharos Sirius still eludes me this point... last boss is a pain lol. I pretty much DF all the way, then run LS/FC members afterwards once I get it down, but DF, people seem to have an issue with me starting out in sword oath. I've had little reason to go shield oath against stash mobs and my ilvl is high enough now I can sustain it. During any instead that I'm OT, I use sword oath as well, but if I know I'm about to switch, I immediately switch to shield. Some people, however, still flip out on me anyway.

Did I miss something? Last I checked I was still pretty durable even in sword oath, so why the flak when they haven't even seen anything to gauge my competence by? Is oath switching really that big a problem? I'm currently learning Garuda EX now that I'm up to that stage. Still haven't progressed past the first phase due to too many people dying, so I just started experimenting. Using both oaths while OT when I pull either sister (opinions keep varying on who needs to be pulled), only thing that kills me is downburst when I've forgotten to dodge it (honestly didn't know what the target thing was about, so that doesn't happen anymore). But here's my thing. If I could contribute more dps, shouldn't I do it? Especially fights I know like the back of my hand. I understand the comfort aspect of it, if I'm not main tanking, what's the issue here?

Some dps have to hold back if you are not using shield oath, it gives a massive enmity boost (especially since 2.1). I guess it depends on who you play with.

Personally, I believe you should play however you'd like to play. As a tank, your overall dot is not that much. V depending on how you spec'd your character. The problem is, that most people want you to either play in a traditional manner, or in their own style. Whatever the case, they should first allow you to proove yourself before offering suggestions.

Really depends how geared you are for the content.

To be honest I stay in shield oath the majority of times unless it's burning a boss (AK for example) and I'm ilevel 86.

Means the healer can DPS instead of me :)

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Originally Posted by Raagnar

Some dps have to hold back if you are not using shield oath, it gives a massive enmity boost (especially since 2.1). I guess it depends on who you play with.

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One of the tanks in my FC honestly has no trouble holding hate in sword oath against DPS who don't hold back. I've even stolen hate from shield oath PLDs while using Sword oath. The damage you're dealing gives you enmity that's sort of equivalent to normal combos in shield oath, with the downside of not taking reduced damage (remember Shield oath drops your own damage dealt)

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Originally Posted by NintenPyjak64

One of the tanks in my FC honestly has no trouble holding hate in sword oath against DPS who don't hold back. I've even stolen hate from shield oath PLDs while using Sword oath. The damage you're dealing gives you enmity that's sort of equivalent to normal combos in shield oath, with the downside of not taking reduced damage (remember Shield oath drops your own damage dealt)

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Like I said, it depends on who you play with. i85-90 dps pull A LOT of enmity. If you are tanking a crowd in sword oath, good luck! your "dmg" enmity is only coming from what you hit. shield oath enmity buffs flash.

Its also very easy to pull hate from a shield oath pld using sword oath depending on where you are in the fight. sword oath has no enmity suppression so when im using it while offtanking I have to hold back most of the time unless the other pld is close to i90 also.

A little known tidbit about the Oaths is that they're somewhat bugged. If you go from Shield oath to Sword oath you keep the emnity gains from Shield Oath.

There's a reddit post on the subject, but I and my friend have noticed it too. We used to think other tanks were bad because they couldn't keep emnity off of us, but it just turns out it's a bug.

You don't keep the damage reduction though.

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Originally Posted by Curcio

A little known tidbit about the Oaths is that they're somewhat bugged. If you go from Shield oath to Sword oath you keep the emnity gains from Shield Oath.

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I wouldn't build any habits or strategies on it though -- SE has said they will fix in the next patch.

I really wanted to use Sword Oath in places like AK and WP to speed up the runs, so I played with it quite a bit. The runs just always worked out faster with Shield Oath. With Sword, I had to throw out an extra 2-3 flashes to keep groups of mobs under control, which took a solid 5-7 seconds of attack time out of my GCD. Overall, my damage output seemed the same or a bit higher with 2 Flashes, and an extra round of attack combo. The healer also had more time to DPS, and the groups were more well controlled overall.

I still switch to Sword for single target stuff like the wall, although I switch back to Shield right before the 2nd Repel to tank bees.

In Garuda EX, as OT, I'll Sword Oath up until the first set of plumes, and then it's all Shield Oath from there.

There are two area's of thought on this. First is Shield oath isn't just about the Emnity boost.(taking the known bug aside) Shield oath grants a 20% damage reduction.

If you're not straining the healers, and you're not losing threat to DPS is the extra 20% damage increase and 50dmg per swing worth it? Hard question to answer. My Whm can do pretty damn good dps...especially in groups because I can holy for 600dmg each and crit pretty often.

By you taking 20% more dmg is that going to limit how often I can dps? Is your additional dps going to outweigh my dps? I doubt it. For the average encounter, sub primals and raid encounters, you really don't "need" shield oath if geared ok. But I think there are side effects of doing this that really doesn't help. I'm going to out dps you even with that dps increase from sword oath.

As a healer i'd rather you stay in shield so I can Stoneskin and regen you then unload most of my mana into Holy and stoneII. Thats just me though (i'm both a pld and whm)

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Originally Posted by Raagnar

Some dps have to hold back if you are not using shield oath, it gives a massive enmity boost (especially since 2.1). I guess it depends on who you play with.

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I've pulled hate off of many tanks who are not in shield oath with just auto attacks.

Remember that healer dps is higher than equal gear tank gear. So its better to take as little damage as possible and leave the healer to dps.

o.o how do you dodge downburst? i usually just pop inner beast and eat it

Using sword oath while MT'ing is just never a good idea imo. Even in sword your dps will still not significantly alter the speed of the run. The healer letting you take a few more hits and swapping to cleric stance to nuke, will. If you are that geared that it isn't an issue, it just means your healer can do more actual dmg that will actually matter.

The Whm's I run with frequently top the dps parse with holy spam on trash and things like feathers in Garuda EX. Even in sword oath, you will never even come close to a real dps. The math doesn't lie.

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Originally Posted by Hanabira

o.o how do you dodge downburst? i usually just pop inner beast and eat it

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Downburst is a frontal cone, she get's locked when "casting" so just run through her slightly and run back.

I've haven't played tank in ff14 yet, but plenty of tank in other games.

The reason is simple, your a tank not dps. the extra dmg you get per swing is negligible compared to what a real dps character can do. Your job in group play is to keep all aggro at all times and take as little damage as possible.

Use sword oath when you're soloing or playing with friends in easy places.

Well, you're a healer, not a DPS. There are times when a tank needs to switch his oath. If they haven't done it much then they need practice switching, otherwise its easy to forget about since you only activate an oath once, normally. I personally don't do this much except in trials but knowing how to helps alot in Garuda EX. i use Sword oath for the first add with Fight or Flight and Rampart, then switch rq to pull the next add. i dont have any issues with my healers about it either. I'm sure it helps that im an i 88 PLD.

You are a tank, your job, especially in harder fights is to keep the mob focused on you wile taking as little damage as possible. In easy content I will go sword oath. But for content were healers are already strained, you are just adding more to their plate.

I only use sword oath as OT, at the moment, when hate isn't my main priority. But I also hold out during the initial volley to let the tank secure hate before I start in because I've had several instances of overtaking the MT. Dealing more damage when I can just makes sense to me, and switching back and forth when you know the fight is child's play. So why not?

During trash pulls, I usually open with two hits, FoF, circle, flash, then end the rotation. I'll tag each mob throughout, but I'm pretty much set at that point even with high AoE bursts.

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Originally Posted by AmandaHuggenkiss

Downburst is a frontal cone, she get's locked when "casting" so just run through her slightly and run back.

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That is good to know, because I tried to run and she followed me, then or it in my backside haha, any other time I just took it in the teeth

I stay shield oath always unless it's bosses like wall, where I swap after bees spawn. Healer can dps better than us anyways, no reason to deprive of mana and become a mana sponge.

On 1 mob: Sword Oath will pull a lot more hate than Shield Oath, specifically if you use FoF . For multiple mobs, Sword Oath is a joke against very well geared DD. Shield Oath is the way to go if you want to keep hate, that is.

Tanks are butter, welcome to the world of Lv50 tanking, where a fish may oneshot you

So all that said, if i'm reasonably aware of whatever situation I'm in, what difference does it make then that I'm switching oaths to eke out as much dps as possible before grabbing whatever key mob I need to tank

You're a tank, not a DPS.
Your job is the following.

1. Hold agro
2. Don't die by utilizng your buffs to mitigate damage.
3. Handle any mechanics thatare specific to you.


Your DPS is nowhere comparable to a DPS, and the amount you add throughout the fight by swapping Oaths is not worth the loss in mitigation.
25% eHP/25% ndirect healing bonus > doing more damage in Sword oath.
Don't stress the healers, use your tanking stance.

Shield oath most of the time except in special situations like Amdapor Wall or when not tanking.
Also in fights with tank swaps it can help to switch if you don't risk heavy damage from AoE or other abilities.
It can also help with hate management. I just love tanks which keep spamming their hate combo after a tank switch instead of helping out with a stoneskin or Storms Path.

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Originally Posted by AmandaHuggenkiss

I've pulled hate off of many tanks who are not in shield oath with just auto attacks.

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Don't play with bad tanks or tanks with weak equipment.

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Originally Posted by Kyana

Shield oath most of the time except in special situations like Amdapor Wall or when not tanking.
Also in fights with tank swaps it can help to switch if you don't risk heavy damage from AoE or other abilities.
It can also help with hate management. I just love tanks which keep spamming their hate combo after a tank switch instead of helping out with a stoneskin or Storms Path.

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That's pretty much exactly what I do. If I'm not actually tanking anything, I switch to sword oath and support the other tank and whatever dps I can. When I'm actually tanking something, I tank it right and proper. I actually hold off on a lot of my abilities just so I don't overtake the other tank after a swap, so throwing some SS's out is usually my first action.

I'm honestly surprised at how many folks flat out find sword oath utterly useless. Seems a waste to me to not actively switch as the situation arises instead of just popping shield oath and sitting on it all day everyday except when solo when it doesn't even matter.

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Originally Posted by Pesmergia

I stay shield oath always unless it's bosses like wall, where I swap after bees spawn. Healer can dps better than us anyways, no reason to deprive of mana and become a mana sponge.

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I can't remember the last time I saw bees spawn... You should be sword Oath this whole fight because the damage wall does is a joke. You should be in sword oath, your healer should be in cleric stance, and hopefully wall should be dead before 2nd repel. If the bees do infact spawn, this is the time where you should consider being in shield oath because this is when the damage ramps up (and even the. Sword oath and cool downs should still carry you). In this instance, I still tend to ignore bees unless the party is terribly geared, and that instance- your probably the highest dps anyway... I bring this up because on your avatar, you have at least a valor coronet, which means you have pretty good gear

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Originally Posted by Raagnar

Like I said, it depends on who you play with. i85-90 dps pull A LOT of enmity. If you are tanking a crowd in sword oath, good luck! your "dmg" enmity is only coming from what you hit. shield oath enmity buffs flash.

Its also very easy to pull hate from a shield oath pld using sword oath depending on where you are in the fight. sword oath has no enmity suppression so when im using it while offtanking I have to hold back most of the time unless the other pld is close to i90 also.

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I use SO in these situations and just wait for 5 seconds after they pull. Usually thats enough time for them to be hitting Halone while I'm hitting fast blade, and I just use the Riot Blade combo.

on single boss fight, I always open with Sword Oath, never had aggro problem. (This is agasint i90 DPS who dont hold back) Currenly there is a bug that let Sword Oath build more aggro than Shield Oath.

By single boss fight i meant , Garuda and Titan Extream mode. I have pull aggro of the MT using sword oath so many time that i lose count ><.


On te side Note, Currently if you swapping from shield oath to sword oath right away. the enmity buff from shield oath will remain while you in sword oath.
the best way to avoid this is to manually turn off shield oath buff first then activate sword oath afterward.

While you can oath/defiance swap there are other things you can do as an OT that make other peoples lives easier. With a few exceptions (Titan HM) there just aren't really any DPS checks where having the OT deal damage should matter.

Paladin can Stoneskin & Flash (Blind)
Warrior can keep up off-rotations (-dmg delt, -slashing resist)

Sure your damage might speed up a fight a little bit, but if the healers don't have to tunnel vision heal, then they can drop some high potency DOTs (cleric stance) which would be as much or more than the difference of your stance swap.

Ex: if a healer does 50DPS when they can spot heal instead of focus heal, then a tank would need to pull 200DPS+ to make it worthwhile for them to drop stance if it required a healer to focus heal. Most tanks (in stance) pull closer to 100~150

Why would you use SwO on any of the extreme primals given they do hit rather hard?
O_o

You use shield oath for tanking in parties. You use sword oath soloing. Difference is small anyways, tanks tank not DD.

Extream primal (except iffit ) does not hit hard (at the right timingm that is). Garuda X, she only does a lot damage if you fail to dodge slipstream and when she with sister, so on the plume phase PLD can go Sword Oath and one of the healer can go DPS stand. you only need Shield Oath when you tank garuda w/ sister.
for titan X, before the first jump, heart Phase after Jail + rock buster, OT during final pahse. Sword oath work wonder in those situation. (BTW play you card right and it possible to kill Titan's heart before he put down the Bomb.