What is the General Consensus?

[Aana]

There is no confusion. Direct damage utility vs. defensive utility, I see no sign of confusion so I assume this is to create wriggle out of the the phrasing

Well then, let's recap then shall we to see the wiggles.

My initial post:
War>Pld>Drk while noting the triad of Damage, Mitigation, and Utility Rankings and that the forum exaggerates. (I didn't specify defensive utility but, based on followup posts and that most utility discussions in the tank forums circle defensive skills, I don't think that's terribly unreasonable)

TouchandFeel Response was: Drk is significantly farther behind because of multiplying effects of each of those 3 deficiencies when combined.

My counter was: I don't add the multiplier effect because damage is (imo) by far and away the most important and that (defensive) utilities don't hold much weight.

Crono_Rising: No, we are undervaluing utility skills. (Lists a buncha ways utility skills increase damage).

(Insert long recent posts about the value of varius types of utility.)

My initial point was, and still is that Drk is last, the forum thinks its worse than it is (which many seem to fundamentally agree on which was the point of the OP determining the consensus on tanks).

Everything after that has been about the how much weight utilities have or 'should' have when looking at this ranking (specifically defensive utilities that tanks roles are assigned. No tank has ever had a powerful raid buff direct damage skill). Considering my initial points were that the damage Drk brought to the table was the only thing that actually mattered (and why I didn't give it a multiplier for other weaknesses) has not wiggled or changed.

Call it what you will, defensive/support/whatever utilities do not get anywhere near the same value as direct offensive utilities in shaping the meta and never have. Trick attack (when used properly) creates a large boost to damage, and I still maintain that damage defines the meta. War using Shake it off 3-4x a fight can in a roundabout way create healer damage. If it saves 1 aoe GCD per use and its used say, 5x in a fight, a healer gained 4 gcds of damage. That is a pitiful amount of damage compared to a 60 sec trick attack on damage used 7-8x a fight. Mantra might save a healer a gcd (as rarely outside of bleeding edge progression do any of these shields cause a wipe). Whats 1 healer GCD compared to a direct damage buff like 20% raid crit rate for 20 seconds on Drg?

Follow the simple logic here. If raid damage defines the meta, direct damage abilities or classes which compete based on raw personal damage (whatever provides the most damage) are strongly favored over indirect damage increases like defensive utilities which 'may' give a much smaller increase via healer GCDs or increased uptime. Therefore: Defensive utilities carry less weight in defining the meta. The tank conversation has consistently for months broken up tanking into 3 categories: Offense, defense, utility (defensive specifically). You have since pointed out every way that defensive tools can be leveraged for offense to say that I'm being inconsistent. If we are going to measure defensive utilities by how much offense they create, then my point still stands. Defensive utilities carry much less weight than damage because they are pennies on the dollar to direct damage buffs or direct damage itself. No matter what angle you look at defensive utilities, the bottom line is they are not as powerful as their offensive counterparts. This is not backtracking. This is sticking to the same fundamental point I have made since the 1st couple posts. The ability to create damage is by far and away the best indicator of the meta, whos on top and whos on bottom. Defensive skills hold less weight because they provide pennies on the dollar compared to straight damage buffs.