Paladin's Shield and Sword Oath levels

[Vereleisk]

Can we get a swap for the quests on Shield Oath (level 40) and Sword Oath (level 30) please?

I mean, the class is about tanking, and the first stance we get is to do more DPS, and it's not helping a whole lot anyway.

Dark Knight AND Warrior gets theirs at level 30, why not paladin?
I'm struggling holding aggro when there's a black mage or ninja in the party, while with the same gear i can hold any aggro on warrior or dark knight.

EDIT: I just realized that paladin is also the only tank class that has their stun on global cooldown, unlike Dark Knight's Low Blow and Warrior's Brutal Swing, i'd rather be able to interrupt the spellcast right now and have a 15-20sec cooldown than having no cooldown and missing every interrupt because it's on global cooldown.

[koroko220]

I second the first part of this thread. For this class being the ' plug n play' tank I don't see why they would get their enmity stance last. Also with their ability enmity modifiers being lower than the other two tanks then it also makes no sense to keep them waiting for their tank stance.

[Jim_Berry]

I don't mind the PLD setup. I never really have many issues holding mobs. Even in an Undersized party, my Lv50 PLD sustained threat. Only exception is when Lv60 DPS spam their abilities as I Shield Lob. Truth be told, I'll just spam Riot Blade combo > Flash for near infinite MP, which keeps hate. On a single target, I am obviously spamming my Rage of Halone combo. With WAR, if you spam Overpower, where will you get TP if there's no one to give it back? I'm not familiar with DRK.

[koroko220]

I personally think that pld enmity should be buffed so that they can use their new dps abilities in the same manner that war and drk use theirs. Also I feel that buffing this would also help people who are learning to tank. I feel a lot of people give up pld taking before 40 because trying to keep hate against a black mage or ninja is pretty rough.

[Disc]

If you turn Shield Oath on & Flash a little it's basically impossible for DPS to pull hate, unless you're severely under geared. DRK & WAR abilities are tied directly to their stances, that is why they get them at 30. GCD stun is much better than oGCD stun in most cases where you actually need stun.

[Phoenicia]

When I leveled my PLD about 2 years ago, I had 0 aggro issues. No class could pull off me in dungeons 30 to 40. (Nor before or after for that matter lol)

This is me trying to get into SE heads and see the reasoning behind this decision...

The logic behind why PLD gets Sword Oath instead of Shield Oath at 30 is probably because:

1- For the entirety of PLD's levels from 1 to 54, PLD only has 1 combo to use on single targets and it is its aggro combo. Unlike WAR which uses Maim and DRK that has Siphon Strike which have no aggro built in. PLD has no real reason to use Riot Blade on single targets. This is the same reason why PLD originally has a lower multiplier on its main enmity combo.

2- PLD with shield and CDs has higher mitigation than WAR (WAR gets Inner Beast at 35 and has no defensive CDs until 42) so it is in no rush to get Shield Oath.

3- A Sword Oath PLD does the same DPS as most DPS classes at that level so holding enmity shouldn't be a problem on single targets. (Same DPS but with enmity multipliers? Overkill!).

4- In AoE situations, PLD can spam Flash indefinitely. Flash got buffed and is stronger than Overpower without Maim. PLD should have no problem in AoE situations. Specially with the only class capable of decent AoE between 30 and 40 is BLM and it is weak at that level because they do not have access to Astral Fire 3 and comes in bursts and has a downtime to refill MP. None of the melees have AoEs before 40 and BRD's AoE is expensive.

The logic behind WAR and DRK getting their stances at 30 is:

1- WAR and DRK have one stance only so they get it at 30. (Deliverance is an added stance in HW so it wasn't in the original design). They also have mechanics tied to abilities they get at 30.

2- WAR has its other definsive abilities tied to Defiance. Without defiance on, you can't use ANY of the "Warrior" job abilities.

3- Due to their mechanics, DRK and WAR use non-enmity building skills such as Fracture, Maim combos and Inner Beast (WAR), Siphon Combos and Scourge (DRK).

With that said, I'm already 50+ on all classes other than AST and MCH and I don't do low level dungeons, so whether SE changes that or not doesn't affect me. If it really is hurting the new PLDs, I think it should be changed. But I do not think it's a problem personally.

As for PLD's stun, even though it is on the GCD, it is the fastest activating stun in the game. You press it and it happens, there is no animation delay. (WAR stun had to be buffed actually as it had a fat 0.5s delay on it). PLD's stun is the longest (6s) and can be used repeatedly. Removing it off the GCD would mean it goes to 5s like the other stuns and gets a CD of 20s. The TP cost is prohibitive though. Again, I'm indifferent to this as I would like it stays unique.

[SwordswornFox]

Flash and Tab targeting mid-combo(1-2 swap, 3-1 swap 2-3 swap, etc) kept me up on trash mob aggro no problem when I was just running Sword Oath in the 30s during random DF runs. All Shield Oath did was make me panic less about CD times and only needed to Flash once at the start of a fight usually, maybe pull out one more to be safe if DPS is splitting targets, but with Sword Oath I'd flash twice at the beginning and mana combo spam on the last trash.

[Brannigan]

When I leveled my PLD about 2 years ago, I had 0 aggro issues. No class could pull off me in dungeons 30 to 40. (Nor before or after for that matter lol)

Sword Oath bonus attacks generated double hate when ARR launched also. I think it was like this until after they fixed the double oath bug that gave you Shield's hate bonus while in Sword Oath.

[Phoenicia]

Sword Oath bonus attacks generated double hate when ARR launched also. I think it was like this until after they fixed the double oath bug that gave you Shield's hate bonus while in Sword Oath.

Didn't the "double oath" bug need you to activate Shield Oath first? Since you don't have Shield Oath before 40, I don't see that bug being possible.

Also maybe I was just a good tank that actually reads the tooltips and knew how to build hate instead of spending my time on the forums complaining about things I can't fix?

I didn't spam Riot Blade because 230 looked better than 200 > 260 combo. I abused Flash in AoE situations.
Or even worse, I didn't spam Rage of Halone outside of combo because I read "This skill generates high enmity" and forgot to read the whole "Combo bonus: 260 potency".
I knew how to balance VIT and STR.

Any day now, take me to level 30~39 instance on PLD and unless you're a WAR/DRK, you won't come close to 70% of my aggro.

[Disc]

Sword Oath bonus attacks generated double hate when ARR launched also. I think it was like this until after they fixed the double oath bug that gave you Shield's hate bonus while in Sword Oath.

They did not when ARR launched. That bug surfaced some time after CT launched & WAR buffs were implemented. It was fixed quickly because PLDs were tearing up hate when they swapped to Sword oath on the last boss of CT.