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

[Shurrikhan]

Could be a fun thread.

"Add One Mechanic to your Job: Tank edition"

DRK: Dark Arts/Dark Passenger

Dark Arts: Spend MP to enhance your next GCD action, adding value (in some not-directly-offensive way) through some new effect.

Dark Passenger: Spend MP to follow up on an oGCD action used in the last few seconds by hitting that same button again.

Effect: DRK gets more APM and a margining mechanic (Passenger after CnS and Shadowbringer, at minimum), and is more able to more its resources between different types of outputs/utilities, deepening a portion of its identity (as the resourceful, deliberate, and cunning no-holds-barred 'bastard' tank).

WAR: Wrath/Abandon

Context:

• Inner Beast and Steel Cyclone are no longer replaced by Fell Cleave and Decimate; the latter just become new, more offensively oriented options at the same time the defensive benefits of the first two are slightly increased.
• Inner Beast and Steel Cyclone heal for damage dealt instead of a flat amount.
  
  
• Inner Release separated from Berserk and now instead simply doubles all gauge generation while halving all gauge spending. It has been turned into a 90s CD that lasts 15 seconds, while Berserk now increases crit chance and chance to be crit for 10 seconds (attacks which cannot crit simply have their damage increased instead). [TBR; the more Berserk-y Berserk effect is still spitball.]
• Enhanced Infuriate changed to Seeing Red, which allows you to rush the cooldown of Berserk or Inner Release by 1 second for the cooldown of both Berserk and Inner Release by 1 second for every 10 Gauge spent.
  
  
• Upheaval, Orogeny, and Onslaught again cost Beast Gauge, and all spenders now have a minimum to maximum amount that they can spend at a time, based on current Beast Gauge.
• For instance, Fell Cleave spends 75% of available Gauge to a minimum of 25 (so, 25 to 75 Gauge) for proportionate potency(-over-average-ppgcd), while Onslaught costs 5 to 15 Gauge.
  
  
• Warrior now passively drains or gains Beast Gauge over time until coming to its resting point of 50 Gauge. As such, one has to balance the advantages of (A), say, getting as big a Fell Cleave as possible for the additional ppgcd and higher ceilings for burst eHP or offense and (B) maximizing overall Gauge generation.
  
  
• Upheaval maximum spending increased and its damage again scales more greatly with one's current and maximum HP, but at twice the intensity it did in Stormblood.
• Another gauge spender added (some sort of enraged channel of blows) and/or Orogeny made more interesting.

Spending Beast Gauge on Defiance Gauge (Inner Beast, Steel Cyclone, Inner Chaos, Chaotic Cyclone) Spenders grants a granular amount of Wrath, increasing your Tenacity, Maximum HP, and Leech based on damage dealt. Spending Beast Gauge on Deliverance skills (Fell Cleave, Decimate, Inner Chaos, Chaotic Cyclone) grants a granular amount of Abandon, increasing your Critical Hit. Additionally, all Beast Gauge spending grants an amount of Attack Speed and Movement Speed based on gauge spent.

These benefits generated fade linearly over time (e.g., bursting to 20% and fading to 0% over 20 seconds if no further effects come in; any number of applications may occur simultaneously).

Note that Defiance skills (Inner Beast and Steel Cyclone) have a high amount of innate Leech (heals for % of damage dealt), while Deliverance skills (Fell Cleave and Decimate) have none except as provided through Wrath or other external effects. As such, the higher potencies of Fell Cleave and Decimate benefit more from the Leech generated by Defiance skills and Inner Beast and Steel Cyclone benefit more from crit chance, since they can crit either

Effect: Warrior is now the ramping behemoth job for whom survival depends on timely offense and accumulation.

PLD: Sword/Shield Oath

Paladin now generartes Oath Gauge from both attacks or defense, gaining a flat amount of Oath from blocks and a variable amount from damage nullification, and gaining a flat amount per attack and variable amount based on physical damage dealt. Oath may be spent to rush defensive CDs (spend gauge to instantly complete their cooling times early) or enhance them, or to skip a rush a combo step or follow up an attack for an additional effect.

The more Oath is generated from one source (from Sword [defensive generators] or from Shield [offensive generators]), the more Oath can be spent at a time for the respective effects.

Effect: Essentially, Paladin remains as flexible as before, but can follow a particular route as either a bastion or crusader type to increasingly pull off some unique levels of defensive or offensive strength, though at cost to combined/simultaneous value.

GNB: Aetherocharge and Cartridges (reworked)

Powder Gauge's function as a pace-setter for burst actions replaced by a more granular Aethercharge gauge built towards Continuation. Those "cartridges" themselves are now used instead as consumable, skill-altering augmentations for the gunblade, based on what form of Aether they've been charged with. Empty cartridges can be charged by absorbing aether as an enemy attack is charging, shortly after the enemy's attack (gauge generated depends on damage absorbed relative to base HP at min ilvl) via Draw, or spending Aethercharge to typify one's Cartridge based on your recent offensive or utility actions. Cartridge types available regardless of enemy include Galeforce Charge, Polarity Charge, Shellshock Charge, and Hardlight Charge. Each adds a general buff (like additional movement and attack speed based on current Charge level), an additional effect to one or more actions, and a unique charge spender (such as no-CD gap-closers and combos therefrom).

Charge drains slowly over time but can be generated to a varying degree by your weaponskills or other actions, based on Cartridge type. Charge can be spent all at once via Burst Strike, emptying the Cartridge to allow it to be retypified while dealing massive damage based on the Charge stored. Starting at level 64, one can cycle between Cartridges using Cycle Cartridge; by level 84, one can cycle between 3. However, note that each Cartridge will drain individually and simultaneously, so there is a cost to that utility, meaning that one will probably want to let at one drain and recharge it burstily later if it's needed.

Effect: Imagine a combination of Nero's DMC5 mechanic and rotating mechanic-granting duration-consumable buffs a la Heavensward Blood of the Dragon, such that GNB is now a stance-dancing, stance-forming madman of tremendous versatility despite an average size button count. And GNB is just now utterly gigabrain instead of just uniquely a bit clunky.

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Overall Effects: DRK now has the most immediate and active/deliberate utility, WAR and GNB have the most involved macrorotations (managed/salvaged/gambled line-ups between CDs, gauge, and GCDs); WAR has the most gauge management and combined eHP + DPS ramping; GNB has the most soft utility and versatility and the most fight-specific milestones for gleaning damage and/or further utility and would generally appear the most gigabrain; and PLD has the highest highs of offense or defense, though at cost, able to pull off some cheese strats no one else could possibly manage.