What if we designed other Tank's abilities like they were made for WAR?

[Marxam]

This is a complaint that has been raised by the playerbase for nearly 8 years now. There are a lot of advantages that WAR was grandfathered into back in Heavensward and Stormblood that were never properly reviewed.

There's no excuse for WAR to retain these advantages over other tanks across expansions, especially after their DPS has once again been inflated by the dev team.

WAR was in a really bad place in 2.0 and it was only in 2.1 that it took off. Imo WAR retained a lot of these old quirks because it was a job designed with a specific theme in mind and every expansion it has expanded on that while staying nearly consistent to its previous iterations. No other tank has retained its core design for more than 2 expansions yet WAR has literally never changed, outside of how much self healing it gets.

Also, vengeance is so miniscule now that removing it will only further homogenize the tank role. It honestly doesn't even play a factor anymore since most savage bosses auto with magic and NF no longer is affected by it, meaning it can't even heal from the counter damage anymore. Removing it will only piss off WAR players similar to how over power was changed. A change so redundant when you consider that WAR has access to other circle aoes like SC, Decimate, Orogeny and Primal Rend.

WAR is just there to prove that having a consistent design around what the job and expanding on it's current tool kit can make the job better (BLM is also in this category). DRK is the anthesis to it, having changed every expansion in pursuit of some random idea or being top dps. Dark Arts was conceptually sound it just needed to be worked out and not affect offensive ogcds to avoid double weaving (yet ironically that happens more now). If DA only affected combo gcds and maybe one or two defensive cds it would have worked. SB was the last time DRK matched WAR in terms of utility, damage and tankiness.

DA could have been the polar opposite to WAR's Infuriate. Both acting as their respective jobs "identity" and their tool kits revolving around it. WAR's Infuriate and later IR are iconic but DRK lost DA (which was an amazing animation). The only thing DRK has retained is that it has the most options when it comes to aoes, having access to line, ground, target and circle. Probably the only thing consistent about the job's tool kit. Rather than trying to remove WAR's skills maybe they should focus on making the other jobs have quirks like this.

[Lyth]

...

It comes down to consistency, really. WAR has developed a reputation for preferential treatment from the devs over the past 10 years. If you want to overturn that reputation, you need to make a strong commitment to fairness towards your co-tanks.

To achieve this, there needs to be a consistent design philosophy. Actions like Shield Swipe were removed because the devs supposedly didn't want tanks to be forced into an MT role. Yet we have Vengeance preserved on WAR. If the damage is insignificant, then removing the effect costs you nothing in the name of fairness. Alternatively, if you want the effect to stay for flavor reasons, then you should have no objection to seeing unique flavor counterparts on every tank. Perhaps PLD gains a free swiftcast proc. Perhaps DRK gains some MP. Perhaps GNB shaves some time off of a recast. None of these take away from WAR's identity in any way. But don't block both.

A frequent deflection that came up through Heavensward and Stormblood was that WAR was simply a 'better designed' tank. Yet when the playerbase demands parity, you see the same circular excuses come up. 'Oh, but you can't have unique buffs to your jobs, because...' You can't have it both ways, and there's a growing resentment in the community around it. Either give up the special treatment, or support unique equivalents on all the other tanks. I really don't mind which route you pick, as long as it is consistent and fair across all tanks as a whole.

[Marxam]

It comes down to consistency, really. WAR has developed a reputation for preferential treatment from the devs over the past 10 years. If you want to overturn that reputation, you need to make a strong commitment to fairness towards your co-tanks.

That's really the crux of the argument. I can't speak for if WAR actually does get preferential treatment but currently it seems like their design philosophy is just to buff the dmg from the weakest tanks currently to match the highest tank since expansion. Like I said, DRK has always changed and the only consistent thing about it is that its an ogcd spammer which is something not unique to DRK or tanks in general as other jobs in other roles have that same game mechanic of high apm. WAR only seems to get preferential treatment because it is the most consistent and thus is much "easier" for them to focus on the execution of the idea rather than just implementing ideas on paper ex, enhanced Unmend.

I honestly believe it's as simple as making WAR and DRK both ehp focused tanks with the former emphasizing healing and the latter emphasizing shielding. Once you have that core design you can then add other skills to supplement that. I'm surprised they haven't capitalized on DRK's shield concept since TBN was introduced in 4.0. WAR got NF then BW, a trait to Equilibrium, ToB and SiO to supplement WAR's identity as a self healing tank while providing synergy. All DRK got since 4.0 was oblation. There's so much potential for DRK's shielding.

A DA buffed TBN that damages nearby enemies and a small heal when shield breaks. A potency shield to compliment TBN's HP% shield. A ground aoe that applies TBN's effect for one person to stand in. A Haima like shield for smaller hits and dot or extended dmg like p10s HH.

These are just examples of what DRK should have had by now to supplement and capitalize on TBN but all we got were dmg ogcds. If they focused on that I'm sure we would have been in a different place with the tanks