Hi, I played a paladin for over a year, I believe I am very well qualified to speak on this matter especially since I ended up being the group's tank in most situations.
the defensive stance is balls to the wall awesome. If I had to choose between aggressive and defensive, defensive would beat it out 95% of the time. The defensive stance gives a bonus to dodge, which is a stat. It also seems to make evasion type skills activate a lot more often. The simple answer is that you take less damage while defensive. A lot less. Armed with my trusty 8/8 kama and the defensive stance, I could forge into certain areas alone, or with one other PC, usually a merc or barb. Given that I could heal myself, and I was guaranteed to be able to take hits via the rescue skills it was a no-brainer. Having a higher dexterity increases the dodge stat, that is the leet "miss" message you get when someone tries to crack your skull open with his can-opener.
I don't think you fully appreciate the bonuses that defensive stance give, because they are outrageous compared to aggressive, which probably doesn't give a bonus at all. I don't know. I rarely went on aggressive mode just because it was so much better than aggressive, and I'd also like to point out that I think Edoras is right that it makes bashes/trips fail a lot more. That's just too elite to pass up. But I definitely outperformed on defensive. I don't even think the 4 attacks I got with haste was worth it compared to the sheer toughness you receive on the defensive stance.
In short, get the [REDACTED] out of my constituency. I didn't want you voting for me.
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