New Tank facing many challenges... need advice.

[Galgarion]

Heyo,
YouTube (MTQ!) has been very helpful. Whenever I can I purchase the highest level gear from the marketplace but that drains my Gil so fast, it’s not even funny.
I also want to finally play a Dark Knight (meta is a question of time not class ) soon.

If you're determined to level as a Paladin, (or any tank really,) then for best results you're going to have to spam run dungeons until you have a good set of green equipment. There's a main story dungeon you're rapidly heading towards called The Vault, and it's pretty much the definitive ball buster as far as regular dungeons go. You're gonna get rocked hard if you're not at least 136 by then. Honestly, if you want to have a good time, then what you're going to want to do is spam level by running dungeons all the way to 60, then use your poetic tomes to get a nice set of shire armor. Then go finish the (HW) MSQ in style without worrying about being unable to clear anything. It's what I'd do. Tanking sucks in this game if your gear is crap, and if you upgrade your shire gear to 270 it'll last you all the way to level 76.