GLA sword n' shield

[Enkidoh]

That information listed about GLA on the website is now actually out of date somewhat - it actually referred to the original version of FFXIV (version 1.0) where GLAs were more balanced between attacking and defending, and hence keeping their offhand free actually did help with the (now long-scrapped) 'stamina gauge' building up faster (this is also why GLA has a number of daggers and knives in it's repertoire - in 1.0 such weapons were usually faster but at the cost of doing less damage). In 1.0 shields actually added a sub-class called 'Sentinel' (or 'SEN' for short) which had it's own set of tanking abilities (which could only be used by GLA), hence adding a shield turned GLA into a straight tank. Towards the end of 1.0's life the whole Armoury System was changed, GLA became a straight tank, losing a little proficiency in DDing, and SEN was scrapped completely, it's abilities being given to GLA.

Hence the now inaccurate description for the class - SE just recycled the old class description from the old 1.0 website and never really updated it. So basically, although a GLA can function without a shield, this is only really suitable for low levels, and even then it's highly recommended to invest in one as soon as you can, as you'll take far less damage with one, even when soloing. And a number of GLA abilities cannot be used without a shield equipped (Shield Lob, Shield Bash, Shield Swipe etc).