Is Warrior the weakest of the tanks?

[Launched]

Utility futility schmutility. What WAR brings is convenience to a party. You have damage and you have cooldowns for any situation.

I'm pretty sure DRK and PLD have damage and cooldowns too. The damage difference between tanks isn't as big as you think, for example at 95th percentile PLD actually averages the most DPS in O2S and DRK is only 40 DPS behind WAR in O3S. Across all fights (using the all bosses filter), PLD averages ~50-70 DPS less than WAR and DRK averages ~100-130 less than WAR. That's an incredibly small difference when groups are doing 25k+.



If you want to just count cooldowns then sure, WAR has more. But PLD and DRK can actually use their short cooldown skills outside of tank stance. That means they have Sheltron/Intervention and TBN for every single tankbuster on top of whatever else they want to use. That's either 25% mitigation + 5-5.5k shield, or 10% mitigation (or 20/30% if Rampart and Sentinel won't be needed) + 10-11k shield. That's way more than enough to compete with WAR's skills.

You and your party never have to think about your position when it comes to delta attack. just lolholmgang it. Your co-tank never has to coordinate taking the 2nd hit of thunder III. just lolholmgang the first and third, while he invuls the 2nd. When you can conserve defensive CDs for you and your co-tank, that is the very definition of a safer run. MTing halicarnassus is a joke with the PLETHORA of options, and OTing in that fight s smooth as butter thanks to onslaught.

Your party also never needs to think about Delta Attack if you have a DRK. They're just over 5 minutes apart so you can Living Dead all 3 of them. PLD can use Hallowed on whatever else your group would prefer, it's available for 2 of the 3 Double Attacks. The 1st and 2nd Double Attacks are just over 3m apart so I don't think a WAR could take all 3, though I could be wrong. So bringing a WAR means you get to avoid one tank swap against normal Exdeath, which is hardly a big advantage.

MTing O3S without a WAR is also a joke because Awareness gives all 3 tanks another 33% mitigation cooldown. You get a lot of mitigation for every single Critical Hit thanks to TBN/Sheltron/Intervention/Cover/Awareness, and that doesn't even cut into skills like Rampart/Sentinel/Shadow Wall if you want to keep them for autoattacks. OTing as any tank isn't exactly difficult either, adds are spread out well enough that you'll have good cooldowns for them all and enmity reducing skills should be up for them all except Dragon.

So how is "lack of utlity" a valid point when it hasn't even proved a breaking point?

It's a valid point because none of the things WAR is meant to be good at actually make much of a difference in practice, so we have 3 tanks that can all DPS/tank well, but one has a ton of utility, the second has a little bit, and the third has none.