Dark Knight : Just another mitigation tank

[Noxifer]

Their eHP is the same. Plus, WAR has IB, which is effectively an anytime Rampart.

Except for a few things... *hides because it's a side-note from the thread topic*

IB takes five stacks of Wrath to execute, which means two and a half combos (or two combos and either of Berserk/Vengeance, the second of which is already a damage mitigator). This takes 8 GCDs, so about... 12 seconds. This is less than Rampart's 60 seconds, yes (provided all attacks hit and you don't have to dodge away due to AoE or the boss has Invulnerable/Gone moments). It also doesn't last as long as Rampart (only 6 seconds vs 20), so it's trickier to work with, plus it needs a target to execute.

(Example: Catching three balls in A4. PLD can pop Rampart, and it'll last for all of them. WAR can pop IB by whacking a leg before running over to the balls, and IB will most likely have worn off by the time she gets there, and if not it'll be gone after the first ball.)

Add to that that WAR only has one other damage reduction (Vengeance, as mentioned) that effectively works, since Foresight only works on physical damage. Thrill is kind of damage mitigation, through a self-heal plus increased max HP of the same amount. The new Equilibrium is also a self-heal -- or TP heal, depending on stance.
(And, of course, that a PLD can always Hallow up in case of emergency while chasing said balls and taking Ray to the face... Holmgang isn't quite as useful there :p)

It would be awesome if they had different types of tanks that both worked in and of themselves and in comparison to the others. It's been a common observation that PLDs have relatively steady HP levels while a WAR's HP tends to jump up and down like an over-excited chihuahua. While some healers think the latter is fun to heal, others prefer the former since it's less stressful (and because PLDs are less likely to put on STR accessories). I haven't healed much since HW hit, and I haven't tried DRK out more than picking the job up, so I don't know how DRK performs in comparison to that. I've only heard there's a huge number of bad DRK -- which doesn't say much about the job in itself.

Like others have said, though, I can see how it would be difficult to balance different types of tanks without making one of them either too powerful or too weak/squishy.
Instead of 2.0's WAR, would you want to end up with something like TSW's Glance Tanks? (Note: I know it's not really a good comparison, since TSW has a completely different approach to character/class/skills, but...)

Personally, I wouldn't mind if they experimented with a new type, but the problem is that it would most likely take a long time until they figured out how to balance things, and the raging from the players in the mean time would be horrible. Either you'd get every other tank crying out for a nerf because no one wanted their jobs in raids anymore, or you'd get the few people wanting to stick with the new tank job crying for buffs because no one wanted them. I can well see how it'd be easy to just give up and go, "You know, fine. Let's just ease this job closer to the other ones so people can just choose the job they want to play instead of being forced one way or the other while we try to figure this out."

[Omskahn]

Personally, I wouldn't mind if they experimented with a new type, but the problem is that it would most likely take a long time until they figured out how to balance things, and the raging from the players in the mean time would be horrible.

I agree with this. My question then is why bother make a new tank if it really isn't going to bring anything new? It gives people another option to play, and with more option the tank pool in the game will undeniably increase. Was this all they hoped to achieve though i wonder?

Currently, there isn't any reason to bring a DRK in a party unless you just want to. This might be enough for some ppl, but I feel it just leaves it being less special than it could be. So i guess i'm more disappointed than upset.