Better for what ?
I don't think you understand the purpose of the two classes if you are asking such open ended and undefined questions.
Don't get me wrong I'm not having a go at you, but what is it that you want to know ?
Atm, if you read Glav's guide to tanking you will get gripped up on what the differences between the tanks are per se.
BD's and SWS's undergo role changes at 40, and whilst retaining effective defences their "hate" skill which arguably defines tanking stops at 40. Their subseqent role is in damage and effects potentiation through their dances/sonngs respectively.
Tanking in L2 is essentially broken because there is no effective correlation between offense and defence. Ie there is insufficient damage mitigation in the game to make tanks a viable entity in the face of overwhelming DPS.
Well SwS don't get useful until as you saw around 49, but by the looks of it, TK's never get useful?
I like to do damge, but I don't love tanking, so I thought a SwS would be the thng for me, but they don't get armor masteries....and I remember someone saying they can only real level up in parties.
If u prefer DD'ing than the choice would appear simple ;).
TK's come into their own from lv 77+, but you'll be in the hurt locker for a loooong time before you get there. SwS by their very nature become "useful" at far lower levels, and due to their spt ablities, are able to adopt a pseudo DD role with the right equipment.
A SwS can still have a quite decent pdef even without armor masteries because they get Song of Earth, almost as good as a tank's pdef (but not a tank with a SwS in party lol).
Song of Hunter allows a SwS to do some decent damage and certainly helps any physical DDs in party do more damage. However, do not expect to be comparable to a real DD unless you have -8 or more con and the DDs do not (and they don't keep spamming skills, no way for an SwS to compare to a DD spamming skills).
Arrest, gained at somewhat higher levels, allows a SwS to tank fairly well; just start hitting first and when it goes after the archer/nuker/healer arrest it. The level 35 hate isn't much mp and casts pretty fast; it probably will not pull agro off of a party member but it is useful for pulling or in combination with arrest to get as much agro as possible.
I can keep two songs up with a BD (1song 3dances 1song) and spam arrest+hate without running low on mp.
Temple Knights are not good DDs, they can be as good as an SwS if there is an SwS in party but they should not go -con as that hurts their optimal role of AoE or raid tank. As an AoE or raid tank they are much better than a SwS, a SwS will die. :eek:
Mass PvP I assume an SwS is lots better (I know they help a lot) but I have very little experience with Temple Knights.
Edit: I think "spt" means special? - the song of hunter is what Reckless_Knight is talking about, I assume. ;)