PLD dps needs to be buffed, current dps a joke

[Gooner_iBluAirJGR]

BRD/MCH being "support" DPS is an illusion. As I said earlier, SMN provides far more support than BRD and MCH in the form of E4E, Virus, Battle Rez, AOE bind, AOE slow, Blind, and tank pet. Yet SMN is never called "Support" and is above BRD and MCH in ST and just knocks EVERYONE out in AoE..

Seeing as this thread has almost reached 500 posts, it makes sense that we're pretending AoE Bind, AoE 5% slow, Blind and TITAN EGI are viable support abilities LOL.

Summoner support, with the exception of battle rez, isn't as potent as BRD/MCH support (TP/MP regen, Damage Buff [Foes/Hyper Charge], Damage Reduction (Rend Mind/Dismantle)]. Also, Virus/E4E are usable by ALL the mages so that's hardly worth giving them the title of Support DPS. The only class summoners edge out in support is Black Mage because they can't battle rez.

Anyway, LETS KEEP THE DISCUSSION GOING!

EDIT: OMG it reached 500 before I finished posting!!

#FormsForever

[RapBreon]

The only way you can make healers run out of mana is if you have the DPS keep dying so the healers keep raising. Or the DPS keep getting hit by AoE and not dying but the healers keep spamming AoE heals. Both of which are "unnecessary".

The only way DPS will run out of TP in an actual fight is going into T8.

BRDs and MCHs will almost NEVER spend their MP on anything other than Foe's if the party knows what they're doing. So yeah, BRD and MCH are not "support" classes, but rather full fledged DPS with a support option.

Again, just having 1 or 2 "support" abilities doesn't pigeonhole the class into a role that doesn't exist in this game.

My healers must suck then when they scream for mana and our BRD lock-steps into that promotion (on proof-reading this sentence seems pointless). The absolute optimal performance is impossible for the majority of progression even for gods among men (which we are not...hahaha we are so not). I mean shit, even on non-extraneous damage being taken our healers still need a promo on A2.

You're being woefully reductionist on the number of support skills; the important part is what they do. Quant vs. Qual (wo)man.

Technically MCHs have like 40289218042 support skills, but most of them are fairly useless and/or negligible (though rend mind did save a tank once, I was like :O). Kind of like the SMNs ya know

Edit: As to your edit. I wasn't contesting that point, I agree with it. However, the links you drew between the DPS and that point weren't compelling.

[Phoenicia]

Snip.

Seeing as this thread has almost reached 500 posts, it makes sense that we're pretending AoE Bind, AoE 5% slow, Blind and TITAN EGI are viable support abilities LOL.

It's not about viability as much as the number of "support" abilities. SMN has 6 or so abilities categorized as "support".. That didn't pigeonhole it into a role that doesn't exist. Why is BRD, therefore, pigeonholed into this role because of 2 abilities? I know BRD also has Bind and Silence which are largely useless in most raids. But there were turns that needed them and BRD got that responsibility. T2 Silence and T7 Bind. Oh, but T7, SMN (or even SCH) did a better job kiting those Renaudes at a lower DPS cost raid-wide.

Oh and DEFINITELY Quality over Quantity.

EVERY class in this game has support, regardless of viability. BLM has Apocastasys that people "swore" by how good it was in FCoB, now it's even better than ever before!

DRG has Battle Litany and Pierce buff. MNK has Dragon Kick and Mantra, NIN has Trick Attack and Goad and many other lolviable "support" abilities. Those classes ARE picked BECAUSE of those said abilities. EDIT: Ninja provides the all awesome smoke screen and shadow whatever (Transfer hate).

Heck, PLD has Stoneskin, Protect, Clemency, Divine Veil and Cover to name a few. Why isn't classified "Support tank". I mean that would shut people up from requesting more DPS at the least. lol

Back to point, "support" as a role doesn't exist in this game and everyone provides it. There is no reason to pigeonhole a class or two into said role when it doesn't exist.

And regardless or having support or not, the original point (again) is that DPS variance between classes has always been a "thing" even among DPS classes in the same role (melee/ranged/caster). Why is it NOT okay for tanks to have an 8% DPS difference? Specially when the class that provides the higher numbers, does it at the cost of many trade-offs, which again, I will happily dedicate a single post showing MANY scenarios of said trade-offs.

[Ivellior]

You can't compare different things in order to make a point. You can't say the damage the other tanks do on optimal damage rotation damage is close to the damage WAR does while doing enmity rotation damage and because of that it's fine.

Is WAR MT damage in MT stance greater than the other tanks? It is.
Is WAR MT damage in OT stance greater than the other tanks? It is.
Is WAR OT damage doing their optimal dps rotation greater than the other tanks? It is.

You said yourself that WAR is better as MT because it mitigates better and the other tanks should be OT.
So WAR mitigates better the tank busters but somehow is riskier because:

WAR is "riskier" because EVERY Fell Cleave you use is NOT Inner Beast. WAR's CDs, for the most part, require them to work for their effectiveness, unlike the press-and-forget nature of PLD/DRK's CDs.

Heck, one of WAR's CDs guarantees critical hits if they're not careful! In before you say add Awareness, you'd be just proving that WAR has to "work" for RI to be foolproof. (Make sure you face enemy or you get crit, or pop another CD).

WAR is all about trade-offs, something NONE of the other tanks deal with. If you want a one-to-one mechanic comparison and where WAR can make said trade-offs I can post again with a list of most of them for you to see how "risky" WAR is compared to PLD/DRK.

I don't get it. Isn't having that option being more efficient instead of being riskier? I don't think any of the other tanks would complain if you gave them an ability to use a defensive cooldown to provide a damage buff or extra damage instead of defence. I think most tanks would cry of joy.
And for the above example in specific:
If you are MT in tank stance you'll have to use the Inner Beast anyway. No trade-off.
If you are OT you not taking damage from the boss so you don't have Inner Beast just sitting there and doing nothing. Instead you the ability to use can use it to do extra damage. No trade-off.
If you are MT in dps stance you just need to press one extra button to change to tank stance and use it. The tank stance doesn't cost anything, doesn't break your combo, doesn't loose your stacks and is off the global cooldown. There is no literally no trade-off. You just press an extra button.

The only situation where you might need the cooldown and not have it is not having enough stacks. Not enough stacks? You can use Infuriate which still costs you nothing and is off the global cooldown. 3 buttons. Don't have Infuriate or don't want to use it because you will have to sacrifice damage later on? You can use another cooldown. WAR has those as well.
It can also happen to other tanks if they used a cooldown too late and it's not ready for the tank buster. It's not specific to WAR. And to be fair, the situation above will usually occur only a couple of times when you are learning a new battle / boss. After that all tanks will know the proper timings.

So you are not trading damage for risk, at best you are trading damage for a little more complexity. And even at the one point you actually have to get "riskier" with Raw Intuition the cross class skill Awareness has you covered. And I don't really consider a useful cross skill as a tradeoff. It's not as if you actually have to sacrifice another useful cross-class skill to get it. Now compare that now how useful the other tanks' cross-class skills are.

The problem is that with the current raid design there is absolutely no tradeoff for tanks for going damage instead of defence. Getting more than the minimum required defences actually puts a burden on your raid team since it makes it harder to get dps check.
And since the other tanks don't offer anything other than defences WAR is the mandatory tank for raid groups.
That's the main reason people are complaining about damage. There are 2 ways to fix this. Either give them damage (the easiest way) or change the raid design (ie Tank META).
Changing the raid design isn't likely to happen any time soon. I seriously doubt they will hotfix/patch extra damage on bosses. So for a short term solution increasing the other tanks' damage seems to be more plausible.

Basically one of the following things will happen:
1. They can increase the other tanks' damage in patch soon and keep the same tank meta. This will make most people in this thread happy.
2. They can keep the tank damage as it is and change the META in the next raid (3.2?). Complains will keep going on until people get enough ilvl to clear Savage but will still persist until the next raid comes along.
3. They can keep the tank damage as it is, keep the same META but give some support abilities to the other tanks to make more wanted in parties. That's also something that wont happen soon. Complains will keep going on until people get enough ilvl to clear Savage but will still persist until they announce or implement the changes.
4. They can keep the tank damage as it and keep the same META. Complains will keep going on until people get enough ilvl to clear Savage but will still persist until the next raid comes along and people will start complaining even more when after the new raid launches.

EDIT:
For my part I would actually prefer that they actually change the META rather than give tanks more damage.

[RapBreon]

It's not about viability as much as the number of "support" abilities. SMN has 6 or so abilities categorized as "support".. That didn't pigeonhole it into a role that doesn't exist. Why is BRD, therefore, pigeonholed into this role because of 2 abilities?

Oh and DEFINITELY Quality over Quantity.

0.o

If you had 490 attacks as a PLD, but they all had 5 potency would you consider it a DPS class?

EVERY class in this game has support, regardless of viability. BLM has Apocastasys that people "swore" by how good it was in FCoB, now it's even better than ever before!

DRG has Battle Litany and Pierce buff. MNK has Dragon Kick and Mantra, NIN has Trick Attack and Goad and many other lolviable "support" abilities. Those classes ARE picked BECAUSE of those said abilities. EDIT: Ninja provides the all awesome smoke screen and shadow whatever (Transfer hate).

Heck, PLD has Stoneskin, Protect, Clemency, Divine Veil and Cover to name a few. Why isn't classified "Support tank". I mean that would shut people up from requesting more DPS at the least. lol

Back to point, "support" as a role doesn't exist in this game and everyone provides it. There is no reason to pigeonhole a class or two into said role when it doesn't exist.

Every class also provides some degree of damage, but they aren't DPS either. Some do more and that's part of their specialization.

Ultimately they're classified as a 'support' because those two abilities give more to the group in absolute terms than anything else any other class brings utility wise by like more factors than I can conjure with my hyperbole wizard ball. Some fights everyone - but potentially gods, like world first kinds - will not be able to get through without those part-time mana batteries (like my group, the band of constantly OOM men).

[Phoenicia]

You can't compare different things in order to make a point. You can't say the damage the other tanks do on optimal damage rotation damage is close to the damage WAR does while doing enmity rotation damage and because of that it's fine.

What do you mean "different things"? MNK does more DPS than DRG and NIN, DRG does more DPS than NIN and provides Litany. NIN does the least among the melees and has practically no AoE worth writing home but it provides Trick Attack, Goad and aggro control.

WAR does more DPS than PLD and DRK. DRK does slightly (5%!) less DPS than WAR. PLD does roughly the same level of DPS as DRK but brings far more utility and overall mitigation.

Is WAR MT damage in MT stance greater than the other tanks? It is.
Is WAR MT damage in OT stance greater than the other tanks? It is.
Is WAR OT damage doing their optimal dps rotation greater than the other tanks? It is.

You said yourself that WAR is better as MT because it mitigates better and the other tanks should be OT.

It is Either-Or. At the cost of many trade-offs. For WAR to MT as good as PLD (or better) it will not do the insane DPS you're so envious of. For WAR to do its insane DPS, it will not mitigate as well as PLD. From the moment a fight starts until it ends, WAR has to choose between more DPS or more mitigation. It will NEVER have both. Again, let's not pretend WAR is doing the DPS of a DPS class while maintaining the mitigation of PLD.

So WAR mitigates better the tank busters but somehow is riskier because:

I don't get it. Isn't having that option being more efficient instead of being riskier? I don't think any of the other tanks would complain if you gave them an ability to use a defensive cooldown to provide a damage buff or extra damage instead of defence. I think most tanks would cry of joy.

Sure, if Sentinel made PLD do more DPS at the cost of losing its defensive Value, so be it. Just do not come back here on the forums and complain that due to its bigger CD you end up using it defensively anyways.

I will reply point by point:

And for the above example in specific:
If you are MT in tank stance you'll have to use the Inner Beast anyway. No trade-off.

When you use Inner Beast, that is 200 potency loss compared to Fell Cleave. And 5% DPS bonus loss from not being in Deliverance. That is NOT to mention that you are locked out of deliverance for AT LEAST 10 seconds and doing 25% less damage (30% compared to Deliverance). That IS a trade-off. You are trading doing mad DEEPS off in order to mitigate damage with Inner Beast.

If you are OT you not taking damage from the boss so you don't have Inner Beast just sitting there and doing nothing. Instead you the ability to use can use it to do extra damage. No trade-off.

That is EXACTLY a what a trade-off is, you use Fell Cleave, for the next 8~9 GCDs, you do NOT HAVE Inner Beast. That or you make ANOTHER trade-off with Infuriate. More on Infuriate in a bit.

If you are MT in dps stance you just need to press one extra button to change to tank stance and use it. The tank stance doesn't cost anything, doesn't break your combo, doesn't loose your stacks and is off the global cooldown. There is no literally no trade-off. You just press an extra button.

With that "one extra button" you pressed, you lose 30% damage bonus for at least 10 seconds, you gain increased healing (no effective HP gain until healed).

The only situation where you might need the cooldown and not have it is not having enough stacks. Not enough stacks? You can use Infuriate which still costs you nothing and is off the global cooldown. 3 buttons. Don't have Infuriate or don't want to use it because you will have to sacrifice damage later on? You can use another cooldown. WAR has those as well.

Infuriate is WAR's BIGGEST example of Trade-offs. Every time you use Infuriate you choose either-or. You either use it now for DPS gain (double/triple FC), or save it to use it later for added mitigation. I.e. extending IB duration or fix a mistake. Or a mix of mitigation + DPS (IB into Unchained).

Popping Raw Intuition for the stack is another example. Pop RI for the stack now for added DPS (And achieve the third FC during zerk)? or save it for when I need it on a buster/stream of high damage hits. That IS a trade-off. Same with Vengeance popped for the stack. Vengeance also has an added effect of counter as well which can be used for its DPS gain (Specially in AoE situations or multiple hits, looking at you first boss in Fractal). Another "possible trade-off" though a bit "safe" due to having both mitigation and counter at the same time.

It can also happen to other tanks if they used a cooldown too late and it's not ready for the tank buster. It's not specific to WAR. And to be fair, the situation above will usually occur only a couple of times when you are learning a new battle / boss. After that all tanks will know the proper timings.

There is no mechanic in the class itself that FORCES DRK or PLD to be in a situation where said CD be used for ANYTHING other than its sole-purpose of mitigating damage. Let's not try too hard to over-complicate these mind numbing easy press-and-forget mechanics.

Derpiness doesn't make your class difficult, it makes you a fool.

There is absolutely no trade-offs in PLD's play-style. Being in Sword Oath is almost as safe as being in Shield Oath. Worst case scenario: Pop a CD first then mash ShO hotkey as fast as humanly possible to swap back as soon as possible. No stacks or other GCDs to worry about.

A PLD will NEVER lock itself out of Rampart / Sentinel / Bulwark / Sheltron / Invincible via ANYTHING but actually using the CD itself. The CDs do not conflict with ANYTHING the PLD does as they are not on GCD and do not require any other buff / stance / form to be activated. You simply see damage incoming, and press it.

You can't say "Oh sorry I didn't use Sentinel because I didn't have enough stacks".
You will not say "Sorry, locked myself into a GCD so I couldn't pop Rampart in time!".
Nor will you ever say "I popped Hallowed earlier because I wanted to force a triple Royal Authority into Fight or Flight!"...

I think you get the gist here.

So you are not trading damage for risk, at best you are trading damage for a little more complexity. And even at the one point you actually have to get "riskier" with Raw Intuition the cross class skill Awareness has you covered. And I don't really consider a useful cross skill as a tradeoff. It's not as if you actually have to sacrifice another useful cross-class skill to get it. Now compare that now how useful the other tanks' cross-class skills are.

Any damage you deal as WAR "risks" a window of not mitigating damage. When you use FC, you "risk" IB being unavailable for the next 8~9 GCDs. When you triple Fell Cleave (WAR's ARMAGHERD SUPER BURST!), you REALLY run the risk of 5seconds pacification + 9 GCDs without IB nor Infuriate.

Let's not forget how "strict" WAR's timing is compared to the (again) mind numbing easy press-and-forget mechanics of PLD/DRK.

Take Akh Morn for example, Inner Beast (and Holmgang) have to hit at exactly 80% cast bar, any later and the first hit is not mitigated (you're dead!) and any earlier and the last couple hits are not mitigated. Specially in the later (3rd and after) Akh Morns. Don't forget to have Benediction or Cover ready for WAR after Holmgang! Compared to PLD? Pop CD and LOL! I know! I've main and off tanked that fight as both classes!

While at Turn 13, Picking up the Ghosts of Myricidia, here's a WAR scenario vs a PLD one:

WAR: IB Bahamut to mitigate AoE > Infuriate and run to Pick up add > Pop IB > Pop Vengeance or ToB+Conv > Hit Add to death.
PLD: Stoneskin before AoE > Run to add > Pop Ramparts > laugh until it dies.

Raw Intuition forcing Awareness is my whole point of WAR working for its CDs' effectiveness. And as for "sacrificing" another useful Crossclass, I do not have Awareness Cross Classed on my WAR. So yes, popping Awareness with RI means I either "sacrificed" Flash or Second Wind, both of which I consider more useful than Awareness. The trade-off made here is: to make RI "safe", you sacrifice another CD that COULD be useful somewhere else. This is irrelevant right now, but a repeat of Shiva Bow phase or T11 Cube add will prove "problematic".

The problem is that with the current raid design there is absolutely no tradeoff for tanks for going damage instead of defence. Getting more than the minimum required defences actually puts a burden on your raid team since it makes it harder to get dps check.
And since the other tanks don't offer anything other than defences WAR is the mandatory tank for raid groups.
That's the main reason people are complaining about damage. There are 2 ways to fix this. Either give them damage (the easiest way) or change the raid design (ie Tank META).
Changing the raid design isn't likely to happen any time soon. I seriously doubt they will hotfix/patch extra damage on bosses. So for a short term solution increasing the other tanks' damage seems to be more plausible.

Breaking the balance just to "balance" for a single tier of raids is in itself problematic. What will you ask for when raids require more mitigation and WAR (being the only tank that has a harder time mitigating damage) falls out of favor since both DRK and PLD do the same DPS and provide "easier" mitigation? Nerf again? So we end up like WoW? Blizzard used to over buff classes only to nerf them again 2 patches later. I hate to see this game end up there.

Basically one of the following things will happen:
1. They can increase the other tanks' damage in patch soon and keep the same tank meta. This will make most people in this thread happy.
2. They can keep the tank damage as it is and change the META in the next raid (3.2?). Complains will keep going on until people get enough ilvl to clear Savage but will still persist until the next raid comes along.
3. They can keep the tank damage as it is, keep the same META but give some support abilities to the other tanks to make more wanted in parties. That's also something that wont happen soon. Complains will keep going on until people get enough ilvl to clear Savage but will still persist until they announce or implement the changes.
4. They can keep the tank damage as it and keep the same META. Complains will keep going on until people get enough ilvl to clear Savage but will still persist until the next raid comes along and people will start complaining even more when after the new raid launches.

EDIT:
For my part I would actually prefer that they actually change the META rather than give tanks more damage.

I'm ALL FOR giving tanks niches (ACTUAL niches) that make them wanted. There is absolutely no justification that WAR is deemed mandatory to raids (it really isn't, but people like to choose what is absolutely best anyways). It is people's "stupidity" that makes them "demand" WAR to be in their raids as an OT. That very same stupidity is why people pigeonhole a class so great at main-tanking into the OT role. It is also why people think PLD/DRK should not be OT even though they do said roles very efficiently.

But NO MATTER what the mix is, as long as there is a choice of 2 out of 3, there will ALWAYS be a best choice and a worst choice and people will ALWAYS choose what is, or at least what they think, is best.

Personally I play PLD and I DO WANT for it to be fixed. Yes PLD has not been the top of my priority to hit to 60. It doesn't change the fact it was my first job to 50, my second most important job through out 2.xx, and as long as I'm a "tank" I will play it. (I actually have a VERY good stats PLD zeta that is actually BETTER than my WAR and SMN zeta relics.) But I want PLD to be fixed the right way, I do not want it to be "fixed" only to be nerfed a patch or two later.

PLD's issues lie in its enmity and clunky support. Fixing PLD's enmity WILL allow it to deal more damage. Fixing PLD's support will make it more wanted. Added TP management (via TP expenditure reduction, 0TP GCDs or regain) will definitely be GREAT.

Also if you read my other posts in the other threads you will see me posting suggestions like giving at least one of the other tanks the slashing debuff. If 2 out of 3 classes have it, then no matter what the combination, you WILL have it... Unless you double stack the one class that doesn't have it, which is discouraged anyways.

Snip.

Are you arguing just to argue? You must be VERY bored at what you're doing that you want to procrastinate so hard!

BRD and MCH are classified as "DPS". There is no role that exists in this game that is "support". SCH provides more support than healing, why is it not considered support? It's HPS is definitely A LOT lower than WHM.

Again, the point is, DPS varity exists between classes of the same role.

MNK >> DRG > NIN in single target.

MNK >>>>>>>>> DRG >>>>>>> NIN in AoE. (yes, the difference is ridiculous).

Only reason MNK outdoes DRG and NIN according to Yoshi-P? "MNK is harder to play optimally".

BLM > SMN >> BRD = MCH in ST

SMN >>>>> BLM > BRD = MCH in AoE.

Again, BLM is a lot harder than SMN to play optimally. BLM keeping Enochian up sounds so complicated and counter intuitive. It isn't THAT complicated, but it's definitely not "refresh DoTs at 5s, pop Fester and DEATHFLAAAARRREE AKHMORN!" kinda simple. Specially when everything the SMN has aligns on a 1 minute timer (Aetherflow, Tri-disaster, Contagion, swiftcast, etc).

Melee DPS doing more than ranged DPS is also relative to their "safety". Melee have to deal with more "splash" damage and risk PBAoEs and have to avoid more AoE compared to ranged DPS which can do their DPS from a relatively safer spot.

So, what is the problem in tanks having the order of:

WAR > DRK >= PLD.

Specially when WAR deals with so many "technicalities" with GCD and stack manipulation, DRK has to deal with its MP mini-game. While PLD is just do the following of: 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 4, 1, alt+2, alt+3? Well, my keybinds are: 1, 2, Alt+2, 1, 2, Ctrl+2 and 1, 3, Alt+3. lol

The DPS variance of all three classes going ALL out is 8% or ~80 DPS.

At the end, proof reading this post was a pain, so if you encounter any "engrish", I peg your pardon. lol

[Nadirah]

I find it easier to just stop releasing content while everyone is stupidly undergeared, which is why tank/healer dps is an "issue" in the first place.

Going into Savage at 190 is under geared.

[Gooner_iBluAirJGR]

Snip from somewhere within the wall of text

BRD/MCH may not be classified as Support DPS by the arbitrary rules SE has put in place but the community has deemed it so. Same goes for NIN—its a support Melee DPS. Every class has support abilities, that's true, but they have different qualities about them. The reason (I think) people consider BRD/MCH/NIN support oriented DPS is because their supporting abilities affect their individual performance in order to provide the group with an advantage i.e. songs/promoted turrets/dancing edge etc. lower the BRD/MCH/NIN's DPS slightly to provide the group with an advantage.


PLD, although no one will call it this, is a Support Tank because of all the skills you listed (Clemency, Stoneskin, Divine Veil, Cover) but those support skills aren't tuned well enough for that title to be legitimate.

The support skills from the Off-Tank position (and my opinions about them):
Clemency over-heals most of the time when cast on other players because of its 3s cast time.
Divine Veil is strong but its activation requirement cuts its effectiveness. If it applied the group shield without requiring a heal from a party member it would be worlds better even with the 150s cooldown.
Cover is a great skill but doesn't mitigate magic damage which cuts its effectiveness. It would be a lot better if you could Cover a weakened/recently resurrected player from a room wide, magic damage AoE in addition to its current applications..
Stoneskin is the only skill in their support kit that will do some good whenever its cast.

so . . . #BuffPaladinSupport or #BuffPaladinDPS or #TheSupportRoleIsReal LOL

[Phoenicia]

so . . . #BuffPaladinSupport or #BuffPaladinDPS or #TheSupportRoleIsReal LOL

I am advocating for the clunk to be removed from PLD support. It would be great. It'll also give PLD its unique flavor back too!

[Ivellior]

I'm sorry but I find it quite hard to agree with this logic that you present as a trade-off. In my opinion you are really stretching things it to make it look like a trade-off.
You are mostly saying the following: If I use my stacks of Fell Cleave I don't have them for Inner Beast.

While that sounds perfectly fine in theory it ignores the reality of the raiding dungeons: You know when you are going to get hit by the tank buster.
If you didn't know exactly when you would get hit (for example a random tank buster or a semi-random like Ifrit EX) then that what you say would be valid. You used your stacks for damage and then big attack come and you couldn't use a cooldown. You risk dying in order to get more damage.
But it doesn't really work that way in raids. You know exactly when the tank buster is coming, so if you weren't ready for it then you simply derped. There is no risk if you know when the tank buster is coming. And since most battles are scripted you know exactly when it will come.
So basically unless you mess up you are never in a any real risk of dying.

Unless you are trying to convince me that loosing a little dps in order to use inner beast for a cooldown is a trade-off. And yes it's a little dps because the tank busters don't hit you often in the fights.
Well yes, technically you can say that you trade 200 potency (heck, I'll make it 400 for you) to survive a tank buster that comes once every 3 - 5 minutes. Does that really feel like a trade-off?
I'm sorry to say but while it might technically be trade-off it that doesn't feel like a meaningful one to me. You loose very little and risk nothing in doing so. It's the equivalent of having a defensive cooldown lower your attack while it's active.

You feel that other tanks have it better because they will always have their cooldown ready to use when needed. Why not advocate to give other tanks a skill that wastes their cooldowns in exchange for damage?
Burn that Rampart/Shadowskin/Sentinel/whatever for X% damage up for Y seconds. Damage problem solved, "risk" added and it makes cooldowns actually useful during all that time you can't use them because you are waiting for tank buster to come or you had to use it on some feeble boss auto attacks because that was the only window you could fit it before needing it for the tank buster.
According to your logic the above is trade-off. But I will once again disagree. You will know when to use them for damage and when to use them for defence (because the battle is scripted). It will only add more flexibility not a trade-off. In fact it's an outright buff.

The only thing WAR has, compared to the other tanks, is that it's slightly more complex to time Inner Beast than to time a normal cooldown.
But it really boils down to the same thing the other tanks are doing. You need to time your cooldowns as any other tank or you wont have them up when you need them. WAR does that very same thing with Inner Beast. It's just easier for the other tanks because they have a larger window.

Breaking the balance just to "balance" for a single tier of raids is in itself problematic. What will you ask for when raids require more mitigation and WAR (being the only tank that has a harder time mitigating damage) falls out of favor since both DRK and PLD do the same DPS and provide "easier" mitigation? Nerf again? So we end up like WoW? Blizzard used to over buff classes only to nerf them again 2 patches later. I hate to see this game end up there.

Here lies the crux of the issue. "Balance" is highly depended on how raids are made. I think we can all agree that tanks are fine outside of raids. In the current META you only have meaningful dps checks.
That's why having a WAR is mandatory. And no it's not just "hivemind" as you are saying. It is actually needed, because you either take a WAR or you need to wait a few weeks to get a higher ilvl in order to get enough dps to clear. Any WAR combination will always output much more damage than any non-war combination. That's a fact.

If the next raid META only has meaningful damage checks (again), then the defensive bonus the other tanks currently have will be just as good as piety. If the next META only has big defence checks and a tank can't mitigate those checks as well the others then it will be the same thing. Whoever can't mitigate will have a problem and people will be (rightfully) complaining about it. And the others will be telling them: "You have dps/utility, you don't need mitigation, git gud" and we will have the same thing.
From what I understand what you want is for WAR to have the more damage and less defences than the other tanks and vice versa. Which works is perfectly fine for a META that has meaningful defence checks.

At the moment people are doing savage and they wipe. Most of the time they wipe because they can't meet a dps check. So they need something to offset that. And with defences being so bad right now, that offset either needs be damage (obviously) or utility that will somehow directly or indirectly increase the overall party damage. (In theory higher defences should mean less damage taken and more damage done from healers. However because the boss damage output is low defences don't offer anything significant utility wise.)
Right now WAR has more damage and more utility than the other 2 tanks. That's why there is a ton of posts from the other two tanks asking for changes in skills. And that is also the reason people are asking for damage. You might not like the idea of extra damage because you have a different idea of what the meta should be and what you would like each class to be. That's fine and dandy but that doesn't make people's requests for more dps any less legitimate.
They are here playing the game now. They see they are lacking dps and wipe because of that. They see a META where only dps matters. The problem is they don't know if the META will stay the same or it will change. Maybe they will add meaningful defence checks on the next savage (which is also far away). Maybe they wont. Unless a developer comes out and says otherwise people will ask things based on how things are now, and not on how they might or might not be in the future.
So it's only natural that they will ask for more damage even if you don't like it. Because it's something that is tangible, it wont upset things they way they are now and everyone will benefit.
You believe the other 2 tanks should get more utility instead of damage. That's great. There is nothing wrong with that. But you know what? That doesn't make any requests for more damage any less legitimate. Telling people "You're wrong, you don't need more damage. Git Gud. Here's a skewed video that you don't need more damage. Now let this thread die because you don't agree with how I see things." isn't going to make the problem go away.
You can't force people to accept something nebulous as utility instead of something tangible. Not to mention that "utility" has a load of problems itself, like: "Can utility ever become as good as the extra dps? If so how can you make sure that utility doesn't become mandatory? How do you measure utility?" and so on.

I think the real problem is that SE isn't clear on what it wants the tanks to be. Do they want the tanks to be beefy dps (aka bruisers) like the raids require? Do they want the tanks to be hit sponges like the tank items indicate (class accessories, parry on most items etc)?

Right now tanks feel bland because they function like a dps with extra hp. If you look past the "stack mini-game", "mana mini-game", "no mini-game" they are pretty much the same. The fact that sets them apart (how they mitigate damage) is rarely used. You spend most of your time on dps stance than tank stance when you are the bloody MT (and all tanks do that!).
The only way I see of actually see making all tanks viable in the beefy dps META without giving them roughly the same damage (which apparently is a big no-no for WARs) is to make other classes synergize with them to give them an edge over their counterparts (like how well WHM Benediction works with DRK Living Death).
For example if you have a "DRK / WHM / MCH" combo (random classes) then your group will do significantly more damage than "OTHER Tank / WHM / MCH" combo. Have a "WAR / SCH / MNK" combo (random classes again) the same and so on.

EDIT:

Also DRK and PLD don't have a 5% difference. Even in the worlds spreadsheet (which was used as an example) the difference is bigger and both are lagging significantly behind WAR:
Dungeon/Class/Damage
A1/WAR/998
A1/DRK/881
A1/PLD/777
A2/WAR/1380
A2/DRK/1317
A2/PLD/813
A3/WAR/931
A3/DRK/852
A3/PLD/831