Quote Originally Posted by Akumu View Post
there are practitioners who marry sword with shield, seeking to defend their fellow companions. Others opt for an empty off hand, choosing instead to focus entirely on their sword arm.

This is straight copy/paste from the GLA description which means they are suppose to be able to DD since every 1 handed user carries a shield to DEFEND their allies in every rpg i ever played or know about.
The problem here is that you are quoting a page that still lists Chakra and Steal as Pugilist abilities. These things were said far before beta even began, and it's obvious things have changed since then.

The class has since been tuned more towards a pure tank and less of a 'hybrid' class. If damage is what you want, why not just main a class that has primary abilities to allow you to do so? Why does GLA need to be able to become some crazy DD?