5.3 patch complete note. Yes just keept upgrade WAR and forget about DRK

[TouchandFeel]

snip

While I support there being better and more defined personalities for the tank jobs, I firmly believe that putting all your eggs in one basket, so to say, and doubling down on types of mitigation will likely result in problematic situations.

In 2.0 WAR design did just that, doubling down on the self-heal HP sponge tank design and it ultimately didn't work since self-healing, being reactive mitigation that happens after the damage is taken, doesn't prevent getting one-shot by a buster. So going in too deep with self-healing as a mitigation niche potentially leaves WAR at a disadvantage when dealing with content that has a lot of hard-hitting busters, leaving them either unable to prevent getting one-shot or at least with far fewer ways to deal with large damage spikes compared to other tanks. Not to mention that self-healing can be intensely difficult to balance against other more straight-forward methods of mitigation; often being either too ineffectual, way overpowered, or some odd combination of both at the same time.

As for DRK doubling down on the bubble/shield mitigation, that potentially introduces it's own unique sets of problems. If DRK were to have multiple shield-based defensive abilities, how would they stack and interact? Would they just add to each other or would each shield be independent? If each shield is separate how would you determine priority as to which shield takes damage over the other and how would this potentially affect TBN's ability to break, especially if you are tying more "revenge" mechanics to these other shields? If the shields just "add together" towards a singular shield, such as adding HP and maybe duration to the TBN shield, again how would this work and how would it affect the mechanics of TBN itself? Why would you want shield stacking as opposed to stacking shields with %-down mitigation, where the shields get greater benefit?
I could keep going with questions that would need to be answered, but I think the point has been made. Going all in on DRK with shield and revenge mechanics isn't as simple as that, there are a lot more considerations and things that need to be worked around.
Also, going all in on shields at the cost of equitable self-healing leaves DRK at a heavy disadvantage in certain situations and for certain content, such as wanting to do solo-based content.

I am of the opinion that there needs to be a base foundation of balanced coverage for the tank jobs in terms of how they can mitigate damage, being made up of reactively compensating for damage taken like with self-heals and proactively preventing damage taken like with shields or %-down mitigation. From there tanks can then layer in a bit more of this or that type to provide a distinct style or flavor to how they play; but never to the point of disrupting balance, since not all modes of mitigation are created equal, and never to the detriment of that base foundation of defense. This doesn't mean lean into the Role Actions more than we are already, and honestly I would still prefer if Rampart was removed from role actions and the unique job based variations came back. It just simply means that at their core, each tank job should have enough self-healing and enough direct mitigation as part of their kit as to not be discernibly behind all the other tanks in any such aspect.
It's the difference between a tank job being noticeably weaker than all the others in an aspect, as opposed to a tank job job being a little bit stronger in an aspect compared to the others.

Also, a good way to make even similar or the same mitigation type abilities feel different is to put additional little effects with them similar to the damage on Vengeance. Say we did like I mentioned above and removed Rampart from the Role Actions and gave DRK back Shadowskin but then rolled a Blood Price type of effect into it or even just an MP refresh. What if Rampart, now a PLD only ability also had a slight HP regen on it?
Never discount how light bits of extra variance and flavor can make something seem or feel drastically different.

EDIT:
However I will add that one place that I wished they had leaned a bit more into unique mitigation that mirrored other aspects of the kit is in the party-wide support abilities.
I would have liked to see PLD have a group heal, perhaps instead of Divine Veil, that doesn't cost MP like Clemency does. I would have liked DRK to have a "mass TBN" like ability that puts a shield on each party member instead of WAR having that, maybe even with a little MP boost for each shield that pops. WAR could have a mass % HP recovered from healing actions increase like the additional effect on Thrill of Battle. GNB could have a mass Heart of Stone that has direct % mitigation but then also puts a small shield on each party member with the strength based on their own Brutal Shell shield.
Something more like that since the support abilities seem a tad arbitrary in regards to what type of mitigation goes in what kit.