Sword / shield and accessories (ring first) seem like a good starting point then.

As for bringing PLD over WAR, I'm okay with either. I enjoy WAR more, but at the end of the day I'd rather my group clear content and get geared up as fast as possible. We literally just started Coil like this week, and without much gear to back the group up, PLD is the superior choice when there is a large gear discrepancy. I'd rather do what's better for the whole group, that's all. I don't mind fighting Titan or anything else as WAR (tanked him as WAR for my axe, actually), and I went through our first run of Coil as a WAR when I got my body drop, but realistically, I'd like to make things smoother for the whole party, so it's no big deal for me to bring PLD to Coil.

I don't really see an issue with it. I leveled multiple classes in FFXI so that I could come as WAR, BLM, MNK, or DRG if needed (and BLU and BST), so having multiple options open to keep the whole group running smoother is not a foreign concept to me, and other people have secondary classes so that they can switch if we're stacked on one job and short on another role.