Pal Sword Oath- Used in Level 50+ or no?

I've looked and couldn't quite find the answer I'm looking for. I play on ps4 and only have so many spots to use for my hotbars (I'm just not fast enough to have a 3rd bar and I'm technologically challenged & macros might as well be in another language). As a soon to be level 50 Pal, I'm curious to see if I need Sword Oath any longer. I probably will always have Shield Oath up, haven't seen too many situations where I'd want Sword over Shield Oath (daily roulette where they lower my level down and I don't have access to Sword Oath seems to be the only time I use it now). That said, in post game/level 50 instances, is anyone using Sword Oath over Shield? Note: I will feel awfully stupid if for some reason you can use both at the same time, but I'm assuming that can't be done. Appreciate any feedback, apologies if this is such a noobish question.

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Originally Posted by mpd49

That said, in post game/level 50 instances, is anyone using Sword Oath over Shield?

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You should be using Sword Oath any time you're in a fight and you're not currently tanking anything (swap back to ShO shortly before you expect to swap back). SwO has you doing more damage and generating less enmity than you would in ShO and the only trade off is that you're taking more damage (and, given that you're not being targeted by anything, that's not a big deal). There are plenty of examples of this in endgame content:

Garuda EX - OT is only tanking one of the adds when the sisters spawn and it's the first one to die
Titan EX - Tank swaps so you're only tanking anything around half of the time
Ifrit EX - see Titan
Levi EX - You're not tanking anything for the first 20 seconds, but it's not a big deal; swapping to SwO is a good idea if you're approaching enrage though
Mog EX - See Levi
Turn 1 - OT isn't tanking anything until the boss hits 70% and splits
Turn 2 - Enrage strat, you're not tanking anything at all
Turn 4 - on p3 dread, you're not tanking anything; during cleanup on p6, the dread is generally left for last and is when enrage is (potentially) approaching
Turn 5 - OT is only tanking the Scourges at the start and the snakes during/after divebombs

In all of these situations, it's not *required* that you be in SwO, but it's more useful. SwO is a ~15% increase in your damage and doesn't have the 20% damage debuff either, which equates to a 43.75% increase in damage over what you're putting out in ShO. Plus, because you're getting less enmity, unless your MT simply sucks (or is in some situation where they're forced to throttle enmity to some extent, such as a WAR maintaining SP while prepping Inner Beast on Twintania), it will allow you to do more RoH spam (and, therefore, more damage) without pulling aggro.

To answer your question simply, yes, it's used in the end game. It's not required, but it definitely should be used if you're trying to help your group as much as possible.

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Note: I will feel awfully stupid if for some reason you can use both at the same time, but I'm assuming that can't be done.

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Don't feel stupid. It's one or the other.

I use it when I'm doing beastly dailies, or grinding FATEs, or... yeah, pretty much any time I'm not tanking something for someone else.

Is it too difficult for you to put those two on a bar of their own? Legitimate question because that's what I do

I will swap to sword oath when I'm in a dungeon on a boss and he is at about 25% HP, or at 75% health and DPS is noticeably lower gear and boss isn't hitting me too hard. I'll swap back if needed (my HP is taking chunks down, or DPS is creeping up on the aggro. This is situational and occasional and only when I know it won't risk me too much)

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Originally Posted by AmyNeudaiz

Is it too difficult for you to put those two on a bar of their own? Legitimate question because that's what I do

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As far as your cross bar, OP, I have the same question as well. PLD doesn't have so many skills to fill 16 slots amongst two bars.

Levi EM 1st spume phase, after Dread Tide if MT and only if you have CDs enough to make up for the extra 25% damage taken all the way until phase change for OT until next Dread Tide for MT (which you should be back in ShO for).

And any fight where you're not tanking for more than two combos at a time and don't need the enmity (any fight with tank swaps).

On lower dungeon bosses, you can use it whenever CDs are enough to keep you alive without the healer sacrificing his or her own dps, which is usually greater than yours (Stone II vs. Rage of Halon combo... you don't base hit for 500, but your healer well might).

So, yeah, you use it a lot.

Op, have you looked into Cross Hotbars? Seems like another language at first but once you get used to them its much easier to cycle through commands that way. Granted i'm a ps3 so i'm not sure if that would be any different from ps4 controls

I think I have things I probably do not need any longer taking up space on my bars. I still have "1", "2" LB and sprint. I know nobody seems to mark in end game, but I kind of trained myself to mark & I don't think I've ever needed to sprint, just know that as soon as I remove I'll probably need it. I also use several skills in both hotbars because I may need to use them at a moments notice (Flash, Stun & Provoke). Appreciate the tips very much, will look at all of them. Thank you

Well, on my cross bars I have every skill on them, page 1 and page two. Less likely used ones on my second page, like LB and HG as well as stone skin and a couple of others, and both oaths, but all main defensive cool downs, all attacks, provoke, flash and shield lob on my first page.

So if really needed, I'll flip to page two to swap oaths. But all PLD skills and cross skills can be set on two cross bars, with a couple open spaces as well. Just fit them in on what's most comfortable for you. As an example, page 1 for me, on the right side are all attacks, flash, shield lob and bash. Left side are defensive cool downs and provoke.

Oh - as an additional point, you can have 3 or more bars with all sorts of stuff on them for in and out of dungeons. But you can also change your settings so when you have your sword out, the cross bar page rotation only cycles through the ones you want. Just go into the UI settings and customize it. So in battle, only two pages ever show up because your weapon is drawn. And out of battle you can have, for example, 4 bars to cycle through.

As a fellow PLD on PS4 I can try to help you clean up your hot bars.. I have a sort of theory behind it all that works for me, use it if you want, if it doesn't work then don't:

A few things to set up in the character settings..

1) Enable the expanded hotbar that lets you use L2+R2 to quickly access the "hidden" hotbar (I set mine to hotbar #8, I think this is the default)
2) Turn off Hotbar Sharing for hotbar #8

Hotbar #1 just has the teleport, sprint, return, etc. I swap Limit Break for Auto Attack and put my mounts here. The right side is entirely empty

Main Bar (Cross hotbar #2)

- R2 side

Square - Fast Blade
X - Savage Blade
Circle - Rage of Halone
Triangle - Shield Lob

Left - Riot Blade
Down - Mercy Stroke (from warrior cross class, I've also used Shield Swipe here)
Right - Spirits Within
Up - Shield Bash (this is the same button I use for stuns on War and Drg)

- L2 side

Square - Fight or Flight
X - Fracture (though I hardly use it)
Circle - Circle of Scorn
Triangle - Flash

Left - Sentinel
Down - Rampart
Right - Bulwark
Up - Convalescence

** I've tried to put abilities you might need to use on the move on the face buttons so left thumb remains on the analog stick, ready to move and attack at the same time **

There is a bit more personalization on the expanded hotbar, I have them arranged to sort of match similar abilities on other jobs. But these are what I have:

Expanded Hotbar #8

(note that I copy the R2 side on L2, so it doesn't matter whether I hit R2 or L2 first it gives me the same abilities)

- R2 and L2 side

Square - Shield Oath
X - Macro with Foresight, Awareness and Bloodbath
Circle - Cover (** on a fight were we actually get to use tank lb, like Ultima HM, I put LB here instead)
Triangle - Provoke

Left - Tempered Will
Down - Hallowed Ground
Right - Sword Oath
Up - Stoneskin

It probably doesn't make a lot of sense in words.. Try it if you want, I've spent a lot of time trying to optimize my hotbars for the controller and this is the best I've come up with. As you can see there is plenty of space for all meaningful abilities.

For reference, macros are super simple. Here is the one I use:

/micon Foresight
/ac Foresight <me>
/ac Awareness <me>
/ac Bloodbath <me>

Mostly don't bother with Sword Oath. Paladin DPS isn't that great.
If you're out soloing, sure, use it. If you're OT you can go Sword Oath for a bit of extra dps, but it's more risk than reward.
No one (including you) is going to think that small dps boost was worth it if you die and wipe the party because of Sword Oath.

In tank swaps it helps you to not pull aggro from the other tank and still do damage, so it's useful. When you are Off Tank even if there is no tank swap, the same. In other situations it may help put more DPS (not that PLD DPS is too big) but you become weaker to attacks and create less enmity.

You should be constantly be swapping Oaths during endgame content. Put them on your L2+R2 Hotbar.

Thank you for all of the feed back will look through all tips. Much appreciated.

Pretty much use it for everything I'm not main-tanking, or where enmity and damage taken is a non-issue.

Kitru's post pretty much says it all.
You should learn in every new fight when can you switch to offensive. It makes a bigger difference then most people think.