They tried to have WAR originally be more of a Meatshield (high/extra HP) + Self-healing/Life-steal tank and it ended up making it inferior for raiding compared to PLD because preemptive dependable mitigation is pretty consistently better than after the fact reactive mitigation. This resulted in the 2.1 WAR changes that lightened the Self-healing aspect of the job and gave it better straight mitigation with Inner Beast.