Paladin or Guardian... There's ALOT of Guardians, so.. when the end game comes around persay, they'll be no shortage of that, right now I have a level 32 paladin, and to say a bruiser can outank me makes me wanna lol... I've tanked in RE at 31, RoV Guardians at 26, and I've done it all with one healer. One thing guardians are good at is holding agro on all the mobs? The paladin cant? Lemme say sir, the paladins you've grouped with are idiots, when pulling a group of mobs, -always- blinding light, inflame, divine inspiration (its a buff, a buff generates a ton of agro) rune, buff, Oath Strike (for dps) charge, rinse repeat. I've held more agro then a berserker -or- a guardian in any situation, and I can ward to generate more agro, LoH a group member(or myself) and can heal my group members, I bring extra mana to the party with Prayer of Devotion, and I have self agro buffs. Groups choose tanks based on agro, hp/ac. At 32 im 2350 unbuffed and 2100 ac unbuffed, the only thing I've seen equally equiped guardians have on me is AC, by about 100, max, and thats if they chose defensive traits. All in all, Paladin = Agro, lots of it, and ability to keep group alive. Guardian = AC/HP, more then a paladin, and ability to hold agro on group mobs supposedly... well, ive compared myself to an equal level berserker and a guardian, cleric spent about half as much mana healing me with Rune, now, bad thing about paladin is our DPS is horrid, and since we dont get a powerful shield we dont have as much ac... the end game is basically level 40-50, so... thats now, for now I'd pick Paladin, but im biast after seeing the other tanks in action draining healers mana like nobody's buisness! (And Paladins get a horse at level 20, which looks pretty elegant, but you'll bore of it after like 2 levels =) Hope This helped! (btw, armor like Vanguard doesnt matter at all, the armor you get at higher levels is for all the classes, Hearth forged, etc, RE gobbo rampage armor) And Paladins arent Hybrids, there fighter classes, there just a different branch, a "Guardian" or
"Berserker" is a branch of fighter, theres no need of a nerf on anything, everything is working as intended =)! At least, for now, Paladin is the best choice for grouping (which atm, is all there is to do really, until level 50!) Also, a Paladin in a raid group is a -HUGE- bonus, group him with a guardian, he can give him 500 ac, couple hundred HP (by sacrificing his own), not sure if that buff stacks, but shoving 5 paladins in a single guardians group would give him a few K ac boost! (Btw, all spells used were Adepts in the comparisons!