PLD: Do you tank with Sword Oath on? I do.

[Martin_Arcainess]

Yoho all, this is just more of wondering if anyone else dose this too but I consider myself quite good at Tanking and keeping so one day I decided if I load my PLD with STR gear and stick Sword Oath on would I still be able to Tank 2.5 dungeons ok? The answer! Yes I can!

I kina like Tanking like this in the dungeons, it makes the dungeons go quicker due to me having a boost in DPS, I now have to be abit more careful Aggro holding thus making it abit more go in, Flash once and Combo once on enemy. It's mainly the healer who grabs aggro now due to me needing to heal me more. P.S Healer doesn't mind as it's my other half and heck she even finds time to Holy and Stone II enemies while keeping me alive.

Also for those wondering I equip Tank acr and have Shield Oath on for EX Primals and Coil. I'm not that brave lol. So anyone else dose this and dose this mean the dungeons are too easy on Tanks and healers if I can do this?


Acr Set is all iLV110 and 1 iLV120 Brace

[Lavieh]

Our WAR doesn't do anything non-Final Coil w/ Defiance on. He rarely uses it in Second coil.

Our PLD Tanks a majority of T10 and T12 in Sword Oath.

Definitely very viable and should be done on most content.

Clarity : Obviously in mass pulls/ speed run pulls for dungeons you should have shield oath up. This is inferring single target or small 3 mob packs.

[Ashkendor]

I use Fending accessories and Shield Oath for mass pulls, Slaying accessories and Sword Oath for bosses. The awesome gear set system we have makes it really easy to swap in and out of tank gear fast. ^^

[Coatl]

In FcOB if the healers and everyone else is comfortable with the fight but still need to squeeze in that little DPS, having the PLD in sword most of the time helps out. They only really need shield oath for big hits, like the Rip from Emegud in T10.

For dungeons, I'm not really sure. Sure you hit harder but you will make the healer have to heal you more and in turn they won't be DPSing as much. Though If your significant other can find the time to DPS and heal a PLD in sword oath then props to them.

[Martin_Arcainess]

For every one tank who can actually pull that off there are several others who can't in my experience. Playing healer I've come across quite a few tanks who thought they could tank with sword oath but the hate was everywhere, fairy death, dps aggro, they just couldn't handle it. I hope this doesn't become the norm for people who can't hold hate because it only makes everybody elses lives more difficult.

I actually had one tank the other night who refused to go into shield oath and who only used fight or flight, trying to say he shouldn't have to be using defensive buffs because they cut into his dps time, as if it didn't matter that he was taking so much damage that I could barely get any dots up after shadow flare. He was pulling about 6 mobs at a time in snowcloak but could only hold hate on 3-4 of the mobs on average. He finally caved when the ninja in the party pulled the boss off of him and then switched to shield oath. The rest of the run went fine but there was a lot of resistance/blame put out there.

That said, I'm all for capable tanks not using shield oath or defiance but please know whether you can actually handle it or not. Just don't sit there playing the blame game if you're the one losing hate please because holding hate is your primary job in my opinion.

I don't think he understood about how his Def Buff's don't interfere with his GCD :

In FcOB if the healers and everyone else is comfortable with the fight but still need to squeeze in that little DPS, having the PLD in sword most of the time helps out. They only really need shield oath for big hits, like the Rip from Emegud in T10.

For dungeons, I'm not really sure. Sure you hit harder but you will make the healer have to heal you more and in turn they won't be DPSing as much. Though If your significant other can find the time to DPS and heal a PLD in sword oath then props to them.

: yeah I use my Def buff's accordingly to the situation at hand and I do stick my Tank Gear set up for big pulls as I do know I'm not invincible.

As for when I have a BLM in my party I find that Fast Blade -> Flash -> Riot Blade -> Flash *with circle of Scorn in of course is the best way I find to keep aggro.

[Edeline]

Do you steal hate from PLDs using Sword Oath? I do.

It all depends on your party formation/gear. As a BLM I'm constantly getting hate, even with quelling strikes and people tell me to hold back. Tanks are asking a BLM with nuke dps to hold back so they can do 50 more dps on autoattacks between skills. As a WHM assisting with AoE dmg to kill big pulls faster I steal hate and so do others, resulting 3 or 4 people getting hit by mobs and holding dps back as more heals are actually needed, so tanks can do 50 more dps with autoattacks. I'm not saying PLDs should only use shield oath, but why would you even want to use Sword Oath with such low numbers on dps, holding back others'. I would understand it if dungeons had tight DPS checks like raids or if sword oath affected skills aswell. Sometimes it doesn't really matter as mobs would be stunned while nuked if WHM uses Holy, but sometimes they won't. New dungeons monsters will always do more damage or unstunnable even. If you manage to keep hate with Sword Oath against good geared nukers, good for you. If your healer doesn't mind healing more, good for you. That's all.

[Ashkendor]

Do you steal hate from PLDs using Sword Oath? I do.

It all depends on your party formation/gear. As a BLM I'm constantly getting hate, even with quelling strikes and people tell me to hold back. Tanks are asking a BLM with nuke dps to hold back so they can do 50 more dps on autoattacks between skills.

This is precisely why I don't tank big pulls in Sword Oath. Not only is it significantly less taxing to the healer (to me, using Sword Oath is the equivalent of not using a major defensive CD), but the added enmity helps me keep trash packs together for the REAL dps to take care of it. My damage doesn't count for much when I'm spamming Flash rather than attacks anyway. Sword Oath is only really an option to me in single target situations.

That said, I'm all for capable tanks not using shield oath or defiance but please know whether you can actually handle it or not. Just don't sit there playing the blame game if you're the one losing hate please because holding hate is your primary job in my opinion.

Exactly how I feel about it.

[Purrfectstorm]

so tanks can do 50 more dps with autoattacks

Shield Oath also lowers damage dealt by 20% so Sword Oath is raising damage by a lot more than just autoattacks. That being said, big pulls/aoes make dungeons go faster than extra tank dps. That's why I'm full VIT on PLD, pull trash in Shield Oath, and wear Fending Accessories. Even by not needing as many heals our groups get more damage as healer dps > tank dps. On bosses sometimes it's different as I can often still hold hate in Sword Oath.

On WAR I'm full STR but only because I use WAR a lot for PvP, which is a whole different matter.

[DoctorPepper]

For every one tank who can actually pull that off there are several others who can't in my experience. Playing healer I've come across quite a few tanks who thought they could tank with sword oath but the hate was everywhere, fairy death, dps aggro, they just couldn't handle it. I hope this doesn't become the norm for people who can't hold hate because it only makes everybody elses lives more difficult.

I actually had one tank the other night who refused to go into shield oath and who only used fight or flight, trying to say he shouldn't have to be using defensive buffs because they cut into his dps time, as if it didn't matter that he was taking so much damage that I could barely get any dots up after shadow flare. He was pulling about 6 mobs at a time in snowcloak but could only hold hate on 3-4 of the mobs on average. He finally caved when the ninja in the party pulled the boss off of him and then switched to shield oath. The rest of the run went fine but there was a lot of resistance/blame put out there.

That said, I'm all for capable tanks not using shield oath or defiance but please know whether you can actually handle it or not. Just don't sit there playing the blame game if you're the one losing hate please because holding hate is your primary job in my opinion.

[Donjo]

Going into 2.4 dungeons in i110 gear is overgearing them by 20 iLvls. The gap is only getting wider. It's not farfetched to do such silly things when you start a patch cycle already overgearing the dungeon content. For example, I started a Qarn and performed my pretty much patented mistake of doing the first pull without any Oath on. Usually, someone notices at this point whether a problem happened or not and asks me to use Shield Oath. This time, no such thing happened. So, I decided to see what would happen if I never used an Oath for the entire instance. If I never lost aggro, would anybody notice?

The answer, most hilariously, was no. I only lost aggro on one enemy once and things went without a hitch otherwise. Not a single peep was made in chat about it. Sure, someone may have noticed, but it was never vocalized. The feat was only made possible by STR gear and general overgearing. Also, attempting to speedrun via. mass pulls in Sword Oath is just a poor decision. I wouldn't recommend it

Edit:

A recommendation to all PLDs who wish to try tanking in Sword Oath. You have a lot of defensive cooldowns. Just cycle through them for the entire dungeon. You have enough that you'll have a nearly 100% uptime of something if you pop them one at a time. You can get away with not using your defensives in Shield Oath, but it makes healing that much harder in Sword Oath.