WAR love is out of hand. Twelve forbid the other Tanks stand out in any way.

[Faytte]

My thoughts

Grit, Sword Oath and Shield Oath should not be on GCD.
Shield Swipe should not be on GCD. 10 second cooldown.
Circle of Scorn has its cooldown reduced to 15 seconds, and DOT damage reduced and dot length extended to 20 seconds. The DOT from circle of scorn can be stacked up to three times.
Clemency should not be a spell, but a GCD (that interrupts combos, costs the same mana, etc).
Divine Veil does not need a proc---it should effect the paladin.
Sheltron should also allow you to block block magic damage (per 1.0)
While in Sword Oath, enmity generators should generate additional enmity.
Paladin Traits should be changed on Awareness and Convalescence to reduce the cooldowns to 1 minute.
Tempered Will should effect all allies around the paladin.
Cover should reduce physical damage taken of all allies within X yalms of the paladin. I know people love that this can cheese -certain- content--but id much rather have something useful in all content.
Goring Blade should be a stand along attack, ala fracture or scourge.
Royal Authority should chain off Riot Blade.
'Vigilant Strike' replaced Royal Authority off Savage Blade. Deals damage and generates a shield on the paladin for a short period of time.

[Blueskyy]

For the sake of it lets count pot for all tanks ( single target In dps stance). PLD in SwordO can cover the 20% from maim so lets not talk about it
PLD.
Enmity combo. 610 pot
Gloring blade combo at 920 pot
Royal combo at 690.
CoS 250.

Warrior
Emity combo. 630
Path. 590
eye. 610
Fell cleave. 500 (every 20sec)

Dark knight
Emnity 670
Soul eater 640/800
deli 680.
Salted earth 525.

Sounds pretty balanced to me tho

edit i added some off gcd skills

[Naelle]

For the sake of it lets count pot for all tanks ( single target In dps stance). PLD in SwordO can cover the 20% from maim so lets not talk about it
PLD.
Enmity combo. 610 pot
Gloring blade combo at 920 pot
Royal combo at 690.

Warrior
Emity combo. 630
Path. 590
eye. 610
Fell cleave. 500 (every 20sec)

Dark knight
Emnity 670
Soul eater 640/800
deli 680.
Salted earth 525.

Sounds pretty balanced to me tho

This is not a good way to judge. Just potency doesn't mean anything.

[Faytte]

For the sake of it lets count pot for all tanks ( single target In dps stance). PLD in SwordO can cover the 20% from maim so lets not talk about it
PLD.
Enmity combo. 610 pot
Gloring blade combo at 920 pot
Royal combo at 690.

Warrior
Emity combo. 630
Path. 590
eye. 610
Fell cleave. 500 (every 20sec)

Dark knight
Emnity 670
Soul eater 640/800
deli 680.
Salted earth 525.

Sounds pretty balanced to me tho

Does it? Add on 500 potency on Scourge and all the OGCDs of a Dark Knight you missed, add 300 on fracture, and now remember to mulitply everything out.

Paladin has 10% over time from Fight of Flight.
War has a permanent 20% and then another 5% from deliverance
Dark Knights have 15% from dark side and a 10% AS buff every 40 seconds they can pop.

Add in berserk, unchained and other tools Warriors have to further burst their damage (and thus enmity).

[Phoenicia]

Snip.

Adding potencies by themselves don't mean anything. PLD has 540 potency, but unless you apply it and leave it tick for 30 seconds you won't get the 540 potency. DRK's 450 potency happens once a minute and 525 DoT happens once every 40. Closest way would be to calculate average potency over a period of time or a full rotation. Considering DRK has no rotation and is all situation, and WAR's rotation is filled with irregular bursts, it really is hard to form a meaningful graph.

DRK has the smoothest DPS graph of the three. While it does have 5 oGCDs to throw, 1 oGCD is a DoT and the oGCDs have various CDs and they don't align often enough to for a burst spike. Also your 2 highest potency skills are DoTs, Scourge and Salted Earth. Blood Weapon is not even significant since it does not effect your oGCDs, doesn't last long enough and doesn't increase your damage by enough. Blood Weapon probably gives an ~8% increase over its duration. 8% x up-time (15/40) = ~3%. The MP Blood Weapon gives will help raise up the down-spikes by allowing 1 or 2 more DA per minute. If you are taking damage Blood Price will also have a similar, slightly less, effect.

PLD graph is a bit weirder, it's almost a wavey line that goes up 33% of the time. A PLD rotation that is focused on DPS (skipping RoH) or applying 2 debuffs and RA when both debuffs are up is more fixed and will have almost no irregularities.

WAR's graph represents the stock market. In Deliverance, it will spike up and down hard. WAR's crit rate is unstable because of Abandon and Internal Release. WAR's rotation changes based on what buff is (almost) up. i.e. WAR will use Storm Eye back to back to prevent SE from falling in a triple Fell Cleave and Fracture sacrificing 20 potency for dropping BB. WAR will not always Triple Cleave in berserk if they know they will need their defensives. In Defiance it's even worse when stance dancing, IB/FC trade-offs and Unchained enter the picture.

In the end, without having a full picture of what the three DPS graphs are like, just going with you have x potency on y skill without taking the rotation in mind is pointless.

EDIT: Those graphs will average 3 lines that are very close to one another if TP was not an issue and slashing debuff was provided to all three. Spikier graphs are better for fights with lots of jumps and/or burst phases. Linear graphs are better for prolonged fights with high up-time.

[Kaith]

Even with them all getting slashing debuff, there's still a gap between the 3.

And is it really fair to assume slashing debuff for all three? WAR is going to be in a composition with it available 100% of the time (WAR/WAR, WAR/PLD, WAR/DRK). PLD and DRK will only be in a group that has it available 33% of the time (PLD/WAR, PLD/DRK, PLD/PLD or DRK/WAR, DRK/PLD, DRK/DRK). And that also assumes both tanks are always on the same mob.

The difference between the damage output of a WAR/DRK or WAR/WAR composition and PLD/DRK composition could be anywhere between 30-50%. Which would be fine if the the DPS checks weren't so strict and the defensive output of the latter made up for the difference.

[Naelle]

Even with them all getting slashing debuff, there's still a gap between the 3.

And is it really fair to assume slashing debuff for all three? WAR is going to be in a composition with it available 100% of the time (WAR/WAR, WAR/PLD, WAR/DRK). PLD and DRK will only be in a group that has it available 33% of the time (PLD/WAR, PLD/DRK, PLD/PLD or DRK/WAR, DRK/PLD, DRK/DRK). And that also assumes both tanks are always on the same mob.

The difference between the damage output of a WAR/DRK or WAR/WAR composition and PLD/DRK composition could be anywhere between 30-50%.

30-50% is insane. WAR does more damage but it's not nearly that much more.

[Disc]

For the sake of it lets count pot for all tanks ( single target In dps stance)

Those numbers are useless like that. More to come.

Combos
Hard+Spin+Power = 670
Hard+Syphon+Delirium = 680
Hard+Syphon+souleater=660(820 w/ DA)

PLD Combos
Fast+Savage+Halone = 610
Fast+Savage+Royal Authority = 690
Fast+Riot+Goring = 600((920 actual)+600/minute from DoT)

WAR Combos
Butcher’s Block – 630
Storm’s Eye – 610
Storms’ Path – 590
Fracture – 100((300 actual) +400/minute from DoT)
Fell Cleave – 500(5 wrath)

DRK oGCD
Carve & Spit – 100/minute(450/minute w/ dark arts)
Scourge – 500(1000/minute)
Salted Earth – 525(700/minute)
Plunge – 200(400/minute)
Low Blow – 100(200+/minute)
Total oGCD: 2400/minute+- low blow
2760 w/ Darkside
3163 w/ Darkside + Dark Arts

PLD oGCD
Spirits Within – 600/minute
Circle of Scorn = 250/minute
Sword Oath – 50/auto(1442/minute)
Total oGCD: 900/minute(2342 counting bonus from autos)
2811 w/ 10% avg Fight or Flight

WAR oGCD
Brutal Swing – 150/minute
Total oGCD: 150/minute
180 w/ Maim

Roughly 24 GCD per minute

Dark Knight
This is iffy because it’s hard to say exactly how many times you’ll get to use Dark Arts
Dark Arts+Souleater Only: 6560 potency/minute(7544 w/ Darkside) Not practical
Delirium Combo Only: 5440 potency/minute(6256 w/ Darkside)
Half & Half: 6000 potency/minute(4 dark arts used, 6900 w/ Darkside) - Most similar to actual

Paladin
2 Goring + 6 Royal: 5980 potency/minute(6578 w/ FoF)
Note: Starting another Goring instead of Royal will result in higher overall potency, but not upfront

Warrior
3 Storm’s Eye + 4 Butcher’s + 2.4 Fell Cleave + 2 Fracture: 6150 potency/minute(7380 w/ Maim)
Wonky math, very rough overestimate

DRKTotal Potency Per Minute
8400 Base
10063 w/ 5 Dark Arts + Darkside

PLD Total Potency Per Minute
8322 Base
9389 w/ FoF

WAR Total Potency Per Minute
6150
7380 w/ Maim
If we consider Berserk a 50% damage bonus up for 22% of the time that comes to 8198 potency/minute. I have no idea how close that estimate is for Berserk.(Berserk estimate is very likely wrong)

Using these numbers and PLD as base tank potency...

Unbuffed
PLD 100%
DRK 100.9%
WAR 73.9%

With Buffs
PLD 100%
DRK 107%(aftermath- 109.8% if you count Bloodweapon)
WAR 87.3%(Berserk estimate is very likely wrong)

This does not include TP issues, breaks in fights, etc that will raise the value of Berserk & Fight or Flight. Just a pure 60 second potency estimate based on buff averages.

-edited for slip in WAR combo estimates & again because WAR math
-edit this does not count WAR crit rate either

Even with them all getting slashing debuff, there's still a gap between the 3.

And is it really fair to assume slashing debuff for all three? WAR is going to be in a composition with it available 100% of the time (WAR/WAR, WAR/PLD, WAR/DRK). PLD and DRK will only be in a group that has it available 33% of the time (PLD/WAR, PLD/DRK, PLD/PLD or DRK/WAR, DRK/PLD, DRK/DRK). And that also assumes both tanks are always on the same mob.

The difference between the damage output of a WAR/DRK or WAR/WAR composition and PLD/DRK composition could be anywhere between 30-50%.

That's not how parties work. You will bring a WAR if you are worried about damage taken or dealt. No ifs, ands, or buts.

[Kaith]

30-50% is insane. WAR does more damage but it's not nearly that much more.

Well you instantly get 10% from the DRK getting the slashing debuff in the WAR/DRK scenario and not in the PLD/DRK scenario.

So then you're looking at WAR with slashing debuff versus PLD without slashing debuff which is 25-30%. So you're at 35-40% now.

The 40-50% range would be comparing against the WAR/WAR configuration.

[Kaith]

That's not how parties work. You will bring a WAR if you are worried about damage taken or dealt. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Except no it's not because Eso tomestones force players to specialize in a job by the weapon and left side equipment being job specific. So a static cannot freely alternate between party compositions without hitting a gear penalty that is only like to increase as weeks go on. So essentially you're in a position right now of 'One of your static tanks better be a WAR or you're at a large progression disadvantage'.

That's not to say PLD/DRK isn't viable and can't clear Alex Savage, just that it is going be worse off than WAR/anything as enrage timers will be the main wall that most groups hit during progression. Once people learn the fight they rarely wipe to tanks taking too much damage, they generally wipe because they cannot hit the DPS check. Tanks dealing more damage also gives DPS more leeway when learning mechanics or allow healers not to worry as much about their damage output.

DF also does not allow you to specify party composition. Although this is a lesser problem because for DF content DPS doesn't matter at all right now (and is unlikely to in future)