If Paladin is "specialized in defense" shouldn't its defense be better always?

[Cygsiulle]

You can bypass the 1000 char limit by posting then editing your post.

In actual fights, even if they contain magic damage, PLD mitigates ridiculous amounts. Here is a post with some analysis. So shield blocking magic might be too much.

good to know about that limit thing. i'm starting to see a pattern with silly features here with work around making them kinda... stupid.

from the post you linked, the 2 classes do come off as similar, with the biggest difference i saw as the DA + DM giving the DRK a few more options for magic mitigation, since they have more skills to work with. putting a chance to block magic on the shield, and then mitigate it based on intelligence, as strength mitigates physical (or used to, i seem to recall reading something that removed this feature) even if at best they're only blocking around 15% of the time, for maybe 10% magic reduction on block, it gives them a more constant manner in which to deal with magic, as they should be able to do. this wouldn't quite put them above the DRK's stuff, but as those are based on actually using a skill with a cd, such a trade off wouldn't be that bad. (granted, i'm not advocating making shields actually block a % of damage, just using the % to give a vague estimation of what would actually be blocked after calculations)