Quote Originally Posted by Violette View Post
Given that Paladins have bulwark/shelltron/passive shield/cover/hallowed ground over the dark knights higher damage/dark dance/living dead, for progression (where it was indeed a safety net), it is more useful. It provided more defensive utility and due to it's passive tankiness with the shield vs all the physical damage it was the preferred choice. It was not until A3S with it's massive cliff to climb that all safety was thrown out in favor of maximum possible damage.

Of course now, given we know the fights inside out and can crush it with ilvl, why wouldn't you take war/war/smn/smn/whm/sch/driver/w/e.
I don't mean to sound... well... how this is going to sound no matter how I word it, but PLD needs all that extra mitigation (which is not as much as people make it out to be given how retardedly long its recast times are (short recast-high uptime CDs are ideal in A2S, imo) and the fact that there is no true TB in A2S for Sheltron to be anything other than a guaranteed stray block from an AA) due to how slow everything dies with its lack of AoE. You could argue even that DRK is better due to the fact that the more targets there are, the more powerful its sustain is (MP and self-healing).