Well, this is how I see it:
I have both a Peltasta and Barb.
If you wanted to be a tank, you might as well have gone Peltasta. I don’t understand players who want to try to be a hybrid of everything. A Peltasta C3 is a better tank than any other classes especially with High Guard. If you want to tank, go Peltasta. Otherwise, your role as a DPS swordie is really just off-tanking.
If you are focusing on DPS, focus on DPS. You don’t deal as much damage as Wiz or Archer but you have the highest HP pool still as a swordsman. That’s the whole point, swordsman is not a glass cannon. You sacrifice some DPS for HP/DEF, but you are still a tank.
If you wanted to be a glass cannon, archer and wiz is the class for you.
Really, it comes down to party composition. People care too much about what is the ultimate tank or whatnot.
Put it in perspective, there multiple party compositions. Do you want a tank that invested purely into CON or a tank that has some DPS? We all know the role of the swordsman is still a tank, they have the highest HP pool.
But… people forget, that the tank also adds to the DPS, although not as much as a wizard or archer, they are part of the party and add to the DPS as a whole. If you are talking about individually, yes wiz and archer deal the most DPS… but this game focuses around the party.
Imagine if a Priest didn’t take Blessing? Blessing adds +170 DMG. Now that might not be much for some people but 170 x 5 members = +850 dmg per attack for the whole party. It’s almost like having an extra party member.
Pit two parties together vs a boss for an example.
You have a pure tank swordie and a DPS swordie. Depending on the situation, you only need enough CON to survive some boss attacks. Otherwise, you dump all your stats into CON for tanking which is useless if the boss cannot kill you anyway and you sacrifice all that DPS which could help the party.
Compare that to a DPS swordie. His role is still tanking but he possibly deals x2 or x3 more damage than a pure tank. He is adding significantly much more DPS than a pure tank.
People really need to stop comparing classes individually. We all know wiz and archers deal the most damage as they are supposed to. It does not make sense to give the tankiest class the highest DPS. Learn to play your role right.