FFXIV has some serious competition with WoW: Legion

[Reynhart]

The fact Holmgang and Living Dead scrape the bottom of the barrel design and concept-wise supports my point of Hallowed Ground creating a problem, specially since the devs seem to agree with me on the fact that Hallowed Ground existing = every tank has to have a copy of it to be complete.

You didn't make strat based around Holmgang or HG before Final Coil. The shift in design transformed them from "Oh!Shit" skill to "another mitigation CD" in your rotation.

You forget that the reason for that was NIN's ability to hold aggro and take no damage for prolonged amounts of time, far longer than Invincible's duration with a fraction of the cooldown timer.

NIN didn't have anything native to hold aggro for years, relying only on /WAR. And Utsusemi was not that game breaking, considering you could use it also as /NIN. What set NIN appart from PLD was that it does more damage. Sounds familiar, right ?

Considering builds are prone to one build ruling them all

People always say that...but you know you can make different builds without one being always better than the other ?

PLD: Straightforward tank with a shield and defensive cooldowns.
WAR: Builds wrath and spends it to mitigate or deal damage.
DRK: Drains HP from enemies with a focus on parries and reducing damage received.
BST: Relies on a high HP pool and high defense rating

WAR is already a tank that relies on high HP pool and high defense rating. In fact, some expert WAR on this forum would gladly say that Inner Beast is a waste of stacks.

As for PLD and DRK, passive parry and block are the same gameplay wise. And "reducing damage received" is the same as "defensive cooldowns".

[Duelle]

You didn't make strat based around Holmgang or HG before Final Coil. The shift in design transformed them from "Oh!Shit" skill to "another mitigation CD" in your rotation.

Which in essence makes it pointless to have an invincibility when a damage mitigation ability with a shorter cooldown would be more beneficial, doesn't it?

NIN didn't have anything native to hold aggro for years, relying only on /WAR. And Utsusemi was not that game breaking, considering you could use it also as /NIN.

When an ability turns fight design on its head, there's something horribly wrong and would normally be dealt with.

What set NIN apart from PLD was that it does more damage. Sounds familiar, right?

That's largely because NIN was designed to be a melee DPS/debuffer, but the importance of Utsusemi as used by players threw the intended design out the window.

WAR is already a tank that relies on high HP pool and high defense rating.

WAR doesn't become a squishy DRG/MNK-level melee when out of tank stance. WAR also doesn't have their choice of a pet to bring to dungeons and raids.

In fact, some expert WAR on this forum would gladly say that Inner Beast is a waste of stacks.

I won't get into it here, but suffice to say that this underscores the problems with how WAR is designed.

As for PLD and DRK, passive parry and block are the same gameplay wise. And "reducing damage received" is the same as "defensive cooldowns".

Not necessarily. One idea I had was DRK creating a damage-absorbing barrier when using Soul Eater while in Grit, and draining HP when out of Grit. Another idea was a skill called Dread Spike that would negate the next incoming attack and restore a portion of your HP (basically what Aegis Boon from 1.0 used to be).