Alright... I'm surprised at the lack of Career Paladin input in this thread.

There is this GIANT misconception that PLD is bad. PLD was easily the strongest class in 1.0...


The IDEAL tank would have both Warrior and Paladin leveled. the problem with Paladin had more so to do with how overpowered white mages where. Along with how avoidable certain boss mechanics where by moving. On coincounter you can lock down almost all of his abilities just by dodging them, and do higher damage on Warrior. Why would you do this on Paladin when the DMG capability of warrior is so great? ( Curtana PLD dmg is quite respectable too, btw. If you explore PLD forums there are parsers of garuda kills with the PLD doing about as much as BLM )


PLD AOE threat was the best in the game, I have no clue why anyone would complain about this. As was their single target thread. They don't have the intial burst of threat inherent to warrior, but through proper spirits within, self heals, blocks, two provokes, their threat was easily far superior.


TLDR:

PLD Is really fucking good, the content is just catered to be more flexible when it comes to tank. When it's 6 man content that's more than okay.

Oh, and go poke around in the PLD/GLA forums. there is a lot of min/maxing you guys seem to be ignorant of. PLD was more than capable to tank everything in the game in every situation. It was simply designed so that a warrior could hold their own and succeed too. (Except for extreme end-game, Ifrit Extreme/Hardmode Darnuss- A WAR cant keep themselves up through the 3 WS phase, nor can they block his DEF down move.)