Design of DRK and PLD

[RyomaUchi]

Can anyone explain to me why is DRK a shield tank who tanks with his blood and flesh while PLD is a regen tank who carries a small pp shield?

[Icecylee]

The long as short of it is because DRK didn't exist in 2.0.

Back then it was only PLD and WAR, and we only went up to 50. PLD was the damage mitigation tank, and WAR was the life steal one. So when they added DRK in, they couldn't really make it focused on drains, since that was still WAR's thing, and made it more parry/dodge focused at release. And from there it was mostly just the jobs evolving in different ways, with PLD gradually getting more healing abilities as it went on to align it with legacy expectations, and DRK just.... kind of getting whatever the other two weren't and changing constantly and then just sort of ended up here since it's not like they have any real direction with the job anymore.

[RyomaUchi]

From a new players perspective. It just dont make sense at all. Then i hear from some players saying that DRK will never change cause it was originally inspired by an Anime called Berserk. After watching that anime. It makes even less sense of having DRK being a shield tank. Whats the use of Paladin's shield? I have never seen any "Paladin with shield" in other games that uses shield but almost never uses a shield.

[Enkidoh]

PLD doesn't use it's shield? Uh, lets count the shield-based abilities PLD has:

Shield Bash is heavy physical attack plus Stun but has a slow speed (so you don't spam this)
Shield Lob that is a ranged attack for low damage but high hate (so is the main 'pulling' ability, again, it's not meant to be spammed)
Sheltron resulting in a guaranteed block with the shield for the next physical attack while the effect is active (for 6 seconds).
Passage of Arms throwing up your shield in front to magically defend your party behind you with glowing angel wings.

To say nothing of other abilities technically involving shield in principle or theme (like Cover, Sentinel, even the tank role ability Rampart was originally a GLA/PLD class ability).

And I'm probably forgetting some too but they're the big ones. We also had a few others but they were removed in past expansion launches (Shield Swipe, Shield Oath - this became Iron Will and was guttered of it's defense boost incidentally).

And what do you mean PLD is a 'regen tank'? It has no regen abilities at all - it has a single healing spell in Clemency which is a burst heal, I think you're confusing it with WAR and GNB which do have regenerating abilities. PLD is all about defense and SE's description for the Job on the Lodestone (along with it's GLA base) all but screams "this is a defender".

I'm sorry, but I simply have no idea what point you are trying to make here.

[Kalaam]

They mean "Shield" as in barrier. It does feels weird for the paladin, who has a literal shield, to not be the tank using "shield" mitigation.
What's funny is that DRK also had a lot of parry incentive on release, gave it a duelist feel as a tank (which I honestly really enjoyed).

[Enkidoh]

Uh, but we do, it's called Divine Veil, but only executes if a healing spell is cast on the PLD while the ability effect is active (plus it only works on party members not the PLD themself, and only for party members in range, possibly as part of the image of the PLD SE was trying to paint as a selfless knight who puts others before themself) - hence this is when you use Clemency, but too many PLDs do not realize this (or care about it to bother). PLD could also cross-class Protect originally so it could boost it's defense too with that, but that was of course scrapped.

I think this comes back to the original concept SE had that PLD was meant to be the 'physical' tank (and hence relied on the shield itself rather than magical 'shield' abilities), where as DRK was the magic tank that did (and thus could be undone with enemies that were pure melee), as I recall there was a lot of complaints about this back when DRK was first released because PLD and WAR were just better against most enemies for this reason. Times have changed though, as all Jobs have undergone revisions and the old cross-class system that was still in effect when DRK launched was scrapped.

[Mimilu]

Because PLDs use their shields to randomly block hits, decreasing their damage (using the Block Rate and Block Strength stats, which I think are now hidden stats(?)), while DRKs uses the power of darkness as a barrier, absorbing the damage.

[RyomaUchi]

PLD doesn't use it's shield? Uh, lets count the shield-based abilities PLD has:
Shield Bash is heavy physical attack plus Stun but has a slow speed (so you don't spam this)
Shield Lob that is a ranged attack for low damage but high hate (so is the main 'pulling' ability, again, it's not meant to be spammed)
Sheltron resulting in a guaranteed block with the shield for the next physical attack while the effect is active (for 6 seconds).
Passage of Arms throwing up your shield in front to magically defend your party behind you with glowing angel wings.

Do any of these matters when it comes to savage and ultimate? well i guess PLD does use his shield"Passage of Arms. And by shield what i mean is indeed as Kalaam mentioned. Barrier.

[OdinelStarrei]

Do any of these matters when it comes to savage and ultimate? well i guess PLD does use his shield"Passage of Arms. And by shield what i mean is indeed as Kalaam mentioned. Barrier.

Yes, of course. Some of the usages are more fringe than others, but they matter a lot.

Shield Lob is a ranged attack option that you use when forced to disengage, and you don't have Requiescat up, or you are too early or too late in your physical rotation such that you can't use Holy Spirits as the ranged option for MP reasons. And even though Holy Spirit is used to pull once it's unlocked, all tanks still need a ranged GCD action when synced. This is the gap Shield Lob fits in. It will get more regular usage when Shield Lob no longer breaks combo in EW, unlike Holy Spirit, if the fight design encourages mandatory tank disengagements.

Shield Bash is situationally very useful, even if it breaks combo, does no damage, and ruins your rotation if you don't plan the usage. In Savage, there is only one fight this expansion that takes advantage of it. E8S add phase has a Water sprites that needs to be stunned by Low Blow, Leg Sweep, or Holy before it reaches the center crystal. Since it has the highest HP, it takes the longest amount of time to kill, so the movement path needs to be interrupted by stuns only. Since you are not guaranteed a WHM on your side, (they are probably better off throwing glares anyway), and Low Blow/Leg Sweep are both oGCDs with cooldowns, PLD remains as the one of the two jobs in the game able to chain-stun, and also stun both sets of Water sprites. This of course, isn't useful now with echo and overgearing, but when progging the fight and learning it, this was pretty huge. In earlier expansions, there were similar cases like this, Gordias and Midas in particular were huge about add control like this. It gives PLD another niche. Outside of raids, it is incredibly useful in Deep Dungeons and Exploration content.

Sheltron is the short-term CD. Since it uses gauge, it has the disadvantage of having to charge up at the start of fights, but the benefits greatly overshadow that problem. Being able to use two of them rapidly, the duration meaning you can block multiple instances of damage at the same block reduction, mitigating auto attacks to prevent gauge overcap. With Intervention also being in the kit, Sheltron is really flexible. Sentinel/Rampart + Sheltron + Intervention on the cotank is a staple of double/shared tankbusters, and is efficient CD usage. This is like asking do any of the tanks need their short-term mitigation, and the answer is overwhelming yes. And it's only getting better next expansion.

Passage is arguably the primary reason why PLD is taken in progression groups, next to Clemency. The ability to reduce 15% of all damage for the party, either as a quick weave for a few ticks of damage mitigation for high-powered raidbusters (Morn Afah), or as a focused channel for an taking multiple hits in a row (E12S enrage is a great example of this), on top of the 100% block rate during the entire cast. It's probably one of the best non-invulnerability mitigation skills in the game. Very flexible.

PLD uses a shield, but with all of these tools, PLD falls squarely in "Utility Tank" territory. There is no tank that is better at being a defensive swiss-army knife, in contrast to it's fixed damage rotation. It goes all in on the "Protecting others" part of conventional Paladins. Damage transfer, full party mitigation in the form of direct shielding and mitigation when other tanks have only one, high emergency healing, high rDPS, a ranged phase. It is my firm belief that PLD is probably one of the best designed jobs from expansion to expansion since HW. Barrier tank is firmly DRK's thing now.

Also the most recent Berserk anime is pretty much a crime against the medium, read the manga.

[ArthurATDayne]

The Real Life Meta Reasons why shields would fall out of favor for a Knight is that the armor that they wear evolved enough that a shield feels redundant for protection and to defeat the defenses of their peers/enemy they needed the 2nd hand for greater control and leverage over increasingly sturdier weapons beyond arming swords so we see more Long Swords/Bastard Swords and later large True Two-Handers that possessed either dedicated thrusting or combination thrust/cutting capabilities to get through the gaps in armor or if thrusting isn't possible at the time, hitting with enough force to better break bone and flesh through trauma etc.

Maybe for narrative reasons we can interpret the Dark Knights/Gunbreakers/Warriors as either possessing enough personal defenses to make shields redundant and/or enough offensive 2-handed leveraged might to get through the best armors of Eorzia & the First, and in the Gunbreaker's "arming sword" case, their Gunblades are so Aether-Tech Mechanically Superior & Powerful that even with one hand they are more than enough to get through enemy armor.

/End Rant