Quote Originally Posted by Cairdeas View Post
Kingdom Under Fire Circle of Doom wants to have a word with you. One of the main characters can equip shields on either hand, or both at once. Dual Wielding Shields i actually the most powerful setup in the entire game.
Which is why Sentinel in it's original form for FFXIV has been changed as a tank setup with two shield was probably to over powered.

SE made huge changes to the game before release like removing all of the DoH/DoL abilities to fight. Miner for example was originally supposed to be a THF type class with Treasure Hunter and Steal. Even after the games release it still said that on the official FFXIV site for a while. This goes a long way to explain why those classes are such a ridiculous grind, it's because they weren't designed to level solely on crafting and gathering, they were suppose to fight alongside DoW/DoM classes. It also explains why missions are so stupidly easy as they had to dumb everything down so the DoL/DoH classes can complete them.

I believe SE realised the balancing nightmare they created with the armory system and pulled a lot of stuff at the last minute and since then have been scratching their heads wondering how they can sort out the mess they have created.