After 1 (arguably 2) expansions what is square trying to achieve with WAR (and PLD)?

[Absurdity]

It's not really that Skill Speed directly correlates to WAR specifically being OP, it's just yet another thing/option that WAR has that other jobs do not.

??? WAR doesn't want skill speed either because it causes Upheaval and Inner Release to drift. Can you still play the job with higher SKS? Sure, because warrior is incredibly basic, but none of the tanks currently want SKS if they can avoid it.
From 6.0 until 6.2 GnB was actually the tank that wanted the most skill speed out of all of them, 2.40-2.42 were needed to make your rotation work, and 2.40 actually still works out fine with cooldown alignment to this day...and honestly I preferred the old rotation to the current mess with forced 2-cart burst windows at 2.50 GCD.

[OdinelStarrei]

??? WAR doesn't want skill speed either because it causes Upheaval and Inner Release to drift. Can you still play the job with higher SKS? Sure, because warrior is incredibly basic, but none of the tanks currently want SKS if they can avoid it.
From 6.0 until 6.2 GnB was actually the tank that wanted the most skill speed out of all of them, 2.40-2.42 were needed to make your rotation work...and honestly I preferred the old rotation to the current mess with forced 2-cart burst windows.

I consider dead stats to be pretty bad, but I think you're more right in general, as active detriments such as drift are an objectively much worse evil, I concede. Upon further thought, my issue is probably SkS itself, being a comfort stat rather than a suitable alternative to more direct damage options like Crit and DH. The fact that it's null on Spells is just a twisting of the knife, tbh.

I just miss running 2.32 okay?

[Absurdity]

I consider dead stats to be worse than drift, but I think you're more right in general, I concede. Upon further thought, my issue is probably SkS itself, being a comfort stat rather than a suitable alternative to more direct damage alternatives like Crit and DH. The fact that it's null on Spells is just a twisting of the knife, tbh.

I just miss running 2.32 okay?

I would like to be able to run 2.34, that I ran in Alphascape, again as well.
But we basically had the stars align for those speeds to be useful in the first place.

On warrior for example 2.38 was required to make 5x FC IR work in the first place, 2.34 allowed you to get an extra GCD before forced downtime in a lot of fights, party buff timings were so varied that you didn't completely gimp your DPS with it and Eureka gear allowed us to get high skill speed without completely sacrificing crit.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

On warrior for example 2.38 was required to make 5x FC IR work in the first place

Actually (nerd glasses on) you were able to do it with a GCD as slow as 2.48s, if you had a low ping (10-20ms, stable), but it was VERY tight to time and I don't think we had "time modification tools" back then. But I would not recommend it. The general sweetspot was somewhere between 2.38 to 2.43, with 2.36s GCD and faster being a decent alternative.

Source: I played with it back then to prove a point.

[Aravell]

I mean, I agree with you there but Bloodbath *was* a WAR skill from 2.0 to 3.58... so that isn't exactly the equivalent of what you described with Paladin.

A proper comparison would be PLD's Awareness and Convalescence from 2.0 to 4.58, of which the former got axed 5.0+ and the latter... became a trait Upgrade of WAR's Thrill of Battle.

sips choco milk in WAR getting various tank specific stuff to their kit (PLD Conva -> Thrill trait, PLD Iron Will -> Inner Release, DRK Reprisal -> omni action of which WAR gained, PLD Veil -> made better for ages with Shake it Off)

WAR really does just rip their entire identity out of PLD. Convalescense becoming a Thrill trait while PLD lost theirs. WAR getting 2 knockback immunities in their kit, an advantage that PLD used to have. WAR takes Divine Veil and got a heal on it, then when Divine Veil got a heal attached to it too, Shake it Off got a regen tacked on for literally no reason. Also healing allies used to be PLD's thing back in HW when they took WAR into the direction of the big damage tank, then they decided that WAR should also be able to heal allies and do it for no resource/damage cost and just gave them Nascent Flash.

It's stupid how many advantages WAR took from PLD. I actually wouldn't be surprised if WAR gets Passage of Arms (but better) in DT, or an actual functional Cover.

[Lyth]

Nascent Flash was added in Shadowbringers because WAR mains were complaining about Cover having situational advantages in fights throughout Stormblood. They complained about DV/PoA as well, which was why SiO was reworked into a completely new action mid-expansion. I think that was the first time in this game's history that the devs threw out a newly added action and replaced it with a new one simply because a job's players demanded something more powerful.

[rawker]

WAR really does just rip their entire identity out of PLD. Convalescense becoming a Thrill trait while PLD lost theirs. WAR getting 2 knockback immunities in their kit, an advantage that PLD used to have. WAR takes Divine Veil and got a heal on it, then when Divine Veil got a heal attached to it too, Shake it Off got a regen tacked on for literally no reason. Also healing allies used to be PLD's thing back in HW when they took WAR into the direction of the big damage tank, then they decided that WAR should also be able to heal allies and do it for no resource/damage cost and just gave them Nascent Flash.

It's stupid how many advantages WAR took from PLD. I actually wouldn't be surprised if WAR gets Passage of Arms (but better) in DT, or an actual functional Cover.

Thank you. This has always been my gripe since HW. WAR just takes everything away from PLD.

[Deceptus]

Shake it Off got a regen tacked on for literally no reason.

AoE Bleeds. SIO got the Regen to help the healers with Bleeds (not like they needed it with enough gear though)

[Supersnow845]

AoE Bleeds. SIO got the Regen to help the healers with Bleeds (not like they needed it with enough gear though)

That was always the advantage of the magical mitigations, they affected bleedwides and multi hit raid wides

As with everything with WAR what’s the point of having distinct advantages and disadvantages if you just end up buffing WAR till it has no disadvantages

Then next tier we got harrowing hell which HOL/DM don’t even affect while SIO basically became 2 mitigations in one

[GoatOfWar]

Thank you. This has always been my gripe since HW. WAR just takes everything away from PLD.

Warrior cannibalises everything the other tanks do without any of the downsides, because they're the loudest tank players.
It became the leech tank when Drk was supposed to do that. It took our damage when it was all we had.
It got every short tank cooldown gigabuffed except Dark knight's because that used to be it's thing, it got Aurora as a bonus effect on Equillibrium, it got a longer duration on Holmgang when that was it's only downside.
War got Paladin's rampart streamlined, it got Dark knight's Reprisal and low blow streamlined.. It even got a Shake it off buff to make sure it also got the strongest partywide mitigation in every given situation.

Warrior players want War to be the best at everything. And now that they are, they're genuinely convinced the game is super balanced. I loathe the job. We might as wel not have any tanks besides War rn, because none of them do anything better.
And when confronted with the problems they caused, they will deflect and say that the other tanks need a rework.. Which they then get, and the cycle repeats.
Other tank does something better>Wars get mad>It gets streamlined>gib rework!