Quote Originally Posted by Absimiliard View Post
Cecil also had garbage HP scaling as a dark knight. The only part of your criteria he seems to meet is his heavy armor, but even his defense had some pretty poor scaling beyond what the armor itself gave him.
That is a case of gameplay story integration (FFIV had a ton of it). Just like how Tellah looses Strength and Stamina when leveling up, Cecil Dark Knight stat growth was inferior so that his conversion into a Paladin would make him superior.

Enemies did not have a discernibly higher chance to target the front row with their physical attacks or magical attacks. The only differences between being front row or back row were your physical damage taken and physical damage dealt. Back row characters dealt and sustained half the normal amount, while front row characters inflicted and sustained the normal amount. There were of course some exceptions.
In final Fantasy if you have no characters in the front row all characters in the back row move to the front row. FFIV also had a system where you always had 2 of 5 character slot in one row and 3 character slots in the other. If the all characters in the front row died the characters in the back row would move to the front row. You kept the tougher "tankier" characters in the front row so that the softer characters in the back row could survive longer.

Next point: Kain exists. Kain could and did equip what would be termed "heavy armor" as well, including a shield He specialized in dealing large amounts of single target damage via his jump command. He also had excellent HP scaling and decent defense scaling. His magic defense was a bit lackluster.
Kain is also the other Vanguard character in FFIV's final party. Due to 2F/3R or 3F/2R party formation, it was always Cecil(Paladin) and Kain in the front, Rosa and Rydia in the back and Edge in the Front where he could attack with his swords (and would often get KOed) or Back where his throw command was unaffected by the back's damage drop, but this is unimportant.

But that wasn't the majority of parties Cecil(Dark Knight) was in. You had Cecil/Kain, Cecil/Rydia, Cecil/Rydia/Tellah, Cecil/Rydia/Edward, Cecil/Rydia/Edward/Rosa, Cecil/Rydia/Edward/Rosa/Yang, Cecil/Rydia/Edward/Yang, Cecil/Palom/Porom and Cecil/Palom/Porom/Tellah. After Kain leaves and until Yang joins the only Vanguard character you had was Dark Knight Cecil.