Warriors in this game are not there for causing maximum damage. Similar to other party-based games like WoW, they're for attracting and holding aggro, and surviving while the other party members do the damage. If a warrior in heavy plate could cause the kind of damage an offense-spec'd mage or a rogue could do, there wouldn't be any reason to play the other classes. It's a defensive, crowd control class.
I never had a problem with Alastair or other tanks dying too soon, as long as I had either A) lots of health pots in inventory and the tactics set for warriors to drink 'em, or B) Wynne in the party as a healer.
And yeah... Shale is the ultimate hybrid tank/damage dealer, but I enjoyed my second playthrough with Alistair instead of Shale, mainly because I could actually use the heavy armor and weapons in the game that were useless with Shale as a tank.
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