PLD has never been overpowered and were a joke until 4.0 (when we could finally block magic attacks). I know this cause I've been maining them since 2.0. Remember Flash? Stance Dancing? Tank stance at 40? I remember all of them. You people love to throw that term "utility" around and you don't even understand what that means. Cover is a useless ability outside of very specific instances where you can use it for cheese and that's only with a static, Passage of Arms is only used for very specific area wide attacks from bosses that allow everyone to get together, we are the only tank that can stun lock at will with Shield Bash and the only time that has ever been relevant is during Leviathan, we are the only tank that does not benefit from using our group protect ability (Divine Veil) and the only one that has a weird heal gate on it for literally no reason (which makes no sense since if I'm trying to use the ability it's obviously not for me so why even stop me from using it when I want to?). The one skill that really is great at utility is Clemency and that got nerfed hard this expansion for no reason when they lowered the potency by 200 (yet all healing potency in the game went up for healers) and they took away the 50% increased heals during Requiscat so now if we have to use Clemency for any reason during our Magic phase, we waste a stack and have nothing to show for it.
The 8 ranged GCD is only at level 90. Before that it was 5 and you have to remember that we have to be in range of the enemy to even start our Magic phase. Most of the time we never leave the enemy's side while casting it so can you even call it a ranged attack most of the time? Would be nice if we could cast Requiscat at range.