Paladin vs Gladiator, 30-40

[Bardo]

Keen Flurry - 40% chance to parry for ~20% damage reduction is only an ~8% damage reduction while it's up. ~20% uptime for an average total of 1.6% damage reduction.
Featherfoot - 15% chance to dodge, but a lot of boss attacks can't be dodged so this is a lot less useful than it appears on the surface.
Second Wind - heals for barely more than casting cure on yourself, but with a 2 minute recast.

The cross class skills really don't do a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.

Main stats are king.
Ditch the cross class, turn on Sword Oath, and get to 40 as fast as you can.

[Sisqi]

Keen Flurry - 40% chance to parry for ~20% damage reduction is only an ~8% damage reduction while it's up. ~20% uptime for an average total of 1.6% damage reduction.
Featherfoot - 15% chance to dodge, but a lot of boss attacks can't be dodged so this is a lot less useful than it appears on the surface.
Second Wind - heals for barely more than casting cure on yourself, but with a 2 minute recast.

Yeah, no kidding. Not only are those skills kinda useless for a sponge tank by design, on the journey to 30 GLA I have hardly suffered from lack of damage mitigation. Parry, evasion, and a terrible cure are really rather pointless. I've been using Straight Shot, Raging Strikes, Fracture, Bloodbath, and Foresight. But often I'm so focused on keeping enmity that its just flash/shield lob/halone combo spam. Like yesterday, totally forgot to use Fracture all freaking day. Whoops. Planning on unlocking PLD today, looking forward it!