So...Why was Shield Oath level 40?

[Seku]

I don't know why Shield Oath was level 40, but maybe it's because if you got Shield Oath earlier, PLD would have been so hilariously faceroll at its job that no PLD would have finished a dungeon pre-50 before falling asleep.

Not that it was too hard to tank without it, Flash is a great skill and PLD has a 6 second stun on GCD, which is pretty significant crowd control on its own.

No better mitigation than making an enemy do 0 damage for a duration. Honestly PLD was way more fun before I got Shield Oath, simply because it demanded a bit more attention.

Or they could be expert paladins and learn to chain pull dungeons early on to make dungeons have faster run times assuming there is a skilled healer and DPS to back them up.