Must I start out as a warrior?

[issfire]

Currently I have a warrior at 10 a whm at 11. my eventual aim is to become a pally but i am enjoying whm quite a bit too. Hence, I intend to lvl my whm to lvl 30, do the Pally quest then start on my Pally.

The only disadvantage I can think of is that my Pally will start out than other pallys who play warrior to lvl 30, will not have as high a skill in terms of parry, shield, sword and evasion.

Is this extremely important or would I catch up later?

[Susano]

The most widely used sub for PLD is WAR, so leveling it up would be a big time saver since you'll have to do it eventually.

May want to just stick it out with WAR and get that part out of the way.

You could do this, play WHM till 18 and get subjob quest finished, this will accomplish a few things. You will learn some of the PLD spells like Cure, Cure II, Banish, and Shell, and you will also skill up your magic skill levels. Furhtermore, your road as a warrior will be less tedious with a subjob. You could even use WHM as a sub to help you get to lvl 10~12 quickly.

After that, I would switch to a sub that better compliments your WAR, but that is up to you, some WAR's like to sub WHM.

[falloutboy14]

well, if you do whm, you won't be missing out on a lot. White mages can use most shileds so you can gain that, but more importntly, you'll gain magic skills. When I started paladin, my cure's were doing 6-10 each, not that great. If you raise your magic skills with whm, your cures will do 30 right off the bat.

The only time where missing out on skills should be an issue is when you're already a high level. Say your warrior was using spear for a long time, then you decided to use a 2 handed axe. You'll get experience with the sword just fine as a paldin, shouldn't be an issue.

[Cade]

White mages can use most shileds so you can gain that

...how often are white mages actually getting hit to actually level up shield skill? Not enough to make any sort of difference.

[Tokitoki]

You dont have to START as a WAR but you MUST have a WAR sub to get into parties... A PLD without a WAR sub is pointless becuase you cant tank without Provoke..