True, the class would have to be designed differently.
Printable View
I think the important thing to remember is that Yoshi-P has said that the rules of the armory system are flexible enough that they can retool some abilities to better fit a class idea.
They have to be, because whatever new class gets added to GLD really shouldn't be another tank. DRK makes so much sense thematically and GLD's abilities could be fixed up enough to make it work.
This is one reason why I dislike the class system to an extent. The way they have it now you have to either design one new class and a new job just to make another class, or branch off one of the current classes and have only a handful of differences. I was on the side of scrapping this during the remake and go with the traditional class system, where you start out as the current job and just level it to max.
Just about any new Job that gets added will have to have a new base Class.
One could easily make a PLD into a DRK by simply by creating it with opposing skills, after all, DRK would be the exact opposite of PLD, the yang to it's yin which is what it's supposed to be, regardless of whether or not it makes sense to the user (I would like to take this time to thank Mr. Faulkner for that run-on sentence.)
That being said, they could base DRK atk power off of def, basically just by a change of your soul stone, essentially using the same gear. This soul stone could also change the way the vit stat works.
It all makes sense when one puts it in the right perspective.