Quote Originally Posted by wereotter View Post
Also just my take on it, I feel like a paladin using blood for blood is somewhat opposed to the concept of this job. If you're meant to be a damage sponge as PLD, in my eyes, is built, then why would you want to intentionally give yourself a vulnerability increase? It would seem to fit the mantra I've heard healers tell DRKs "drop grit, eat shit" that will make them hate you for intentionally making yourself harder to keep alive at the gain of a minimal DPS increase.
True, but it depends on the circumstances.

A vulnerability increase does not mean much when you're off tanking. It would just be a flat increase to dps ... assuming you don't go out of your way to stand in AoE's. Further, when main tanking, the amount of mitigation caused by swapping oaths with Bloodbath + FoF is actually quite substantial. It's basically like having an extra Regen for 15 seconds. B4B would only amplify this effect. The vulnerability of B4B would be outdone by the Pld's active healing (especially with increased auto-attack dmg from Sword Oath). Pop on a Rampart and you probably wouldn't notice the dmg increase at all. The only exceptions would be on major dmg spikes like TB's and cleaves, but you shouldn't be swapping oath if you're expecting that kind of dmg anyway.

A fun side note. Back in the Secure days of FL, a lot of Pld's would actually chose to roll as GLD instead, just so they could run with cross skills from Lancer. They lost all their Pld skills (including Sword Oath and Spirits Within), but gained an overall Dps increase using B4B, Invig and their PvP skills (such as Full Swing). There wasn't a huge difference in overall Dps, but if you were a particularly aggressive player it was an exploitable kit that got massive returns. Pld's that chose to do this saw dramatic decreases in their overall defense, but Bloodbath kept them sustainable for short bursts of combat, so long as the healer was aware of what they were doing.