Tank Balance Achieved?

[Lyth]

I don't mind the present tank balance so much as I do the discussion that surrounds it. "Utility" is a word that gets thrown about without any real definition, and really is just a catch-all phrase for "stuff on other tanks that I want but don't necessarily know if I'll even use." Most of the discussion of WAR's utility are thinly disguised attempts to convince the devs to buff the job back to it's former level of dominance. Maim isn't "utility", because NIN and SAM have slashing. Gap closers aren't "utility", even though players spent most of 3.x begging for it, because it's suddenly not good enough. Knockback-negation isn't "utility", because most people don't remember that it exists.

Cover and TBN are suddenly utility. Nobody cared about Cover for the past 4 years, and now that two tanks effectively have it, suddenly people are interested. And it's not even that the average WAR even wants this or knows how they'll use it. It's just being used as an excuse to buff the job. "Yeah, you have that er, bubble thingie, so we should do more dps." Right. I'll just go back to blowing bubbles at my teammates then. Look, I know that there are people out there really struggling with the new WAR compared to how it used to be in HW. That's kind of natural when new actions come out. Everyone is relearning their jobs. Nobody is playing optimally. We'll look back at some of the best players of this tier when our understanding of the jobs improves, down the line, and be surprised at all the mistakes that they're making. Opinions on what's hard or what's easy are meaningless if you don't haven't had enough time to master one job, let alone three.

Instead of "utility", I think that it's better to point to specific balance issues that you've noticed between the tanks. Is there a discrepancy in mitigation costs and self-healing on DRK compared to the other tanks? Is PLD's lack of a gap closer putting it at an uptime disadvantage on certain fights? Is there an imbalance of raid damage buffs on the three tanks? Raid mitigation buffs? These are specific questions that can be answered independently of each other, and tanks have advantages in some domains while being at a disadvantage at others.

At the very least, it'll dissuade the player-base from simply memeing the same catchphrases, and get them to actually think about tank balance and how to improve it across all three tanks.

[DWolfwood]

I don't mind the present tank balance so much as I do the discussion that surrounds it. "Utility" is a word that gets thrown about without any real definition

Utility is basically something a tank can provide that directly helps other members of a party.

Cover and TBN are suddenly utility. Nobody cared about Cover for the past 4 years, and now that two tanks effectively have it, suddenly people are interested.

Not sure if you know, but Cover was buffed. It now provides -20% mitigation, but this ability doesn't really fall under utility. It falls under self-mitigation because it's effectively a CD. Due of this, it has 2 solid mitigation skills that are always useful outside of Shield blocks and cross role as opposed to DRK's 1, not to mention Sentinel is flat out better than Shadow Wall. (TBN is equal to Sheltron(-24%) and Intervention(-10%+).) DRK needs magical tank busters to be on par.

I'm personally fighting to have Shadow Wall's CD reduced to 120s(alternatively, increasing it to -40% would work) and Dark Mind changed to affect physical damage as well, while increasing the timer to 90s.

And it's not even that the average WAR even wants this or knows how they'll use it. It's just being used as an excuse to buff the job. "Yeah, you have that er, bubble thingie, so we should do more dps."

I personally think WAR needs utility, such as Thrill of War. I would also like them to remove the locking of skills behind tank stances. It worked for them in HW when WAR was a perfect job, but things have changed.

Is PLD's lack of a gap closer putting it at an uptime disadvantage on certain fights?

No. This is a joke. PLD not only has a knockback prevention tool, but also has a ranged, ultra high hitting attack window which lines up perfectly for knockbacks in Omega.

PLD is objectively better, there's no question.

[Reynhart]

Cover and TBN are suddenly utility. Nobody cared about Cover for the past 4 years, and now that two tanks effectively have it, suddenly people are interested.

Just my 2cent on that, and my initial opinion before the new content was even released.
The problem I had with Cover before SB is that you'd take the full strength of the attack. Sure, you could use some CD on it, but it was like taking a TB without a tank stance, so not very wise during progression. Now, that it's enhanced, it could allow both the MT and OT to stay in DPS stance even for that small window of big damage. And since WAR was supposed to lose half its beast gauge, keeping them out of tank stance felt extremely useful.

And it's basically the same for Intervention and Blackest Night.

Since I'm taking about "meh" skills that seems to have improved in SB, there's also Clemency. Back in 3.x, if a WAR needed a surge of healing on top of what healers do, it'd switch to Defiance (keeping its wrath), pop Equilibrium, and goes back to Deliverance 10 seconds later. In SB, with the gauge penalty, having an OT PLD casting Clemency on the WAR would be a very minor DPS loss compared to the WAR having to stance dance. And even with the penatly removed, those 10 seconds of Deliverance over Defiance are worth more than what DPS a PLD would lose by casting Clemency.

It falls under self-mitigation because it's effectively a CD.

Not "self", it only reduces redirected damage.