Is Warrior the weakest of the tanks?

[RLofOBFL]

WAR has problems. It's not weak, but it doesn't stand out in any way or offer anything the other tanks don't.

I'd say it has more mitigation than any other tank. Not to mention Holmgang, arguably the best tank invuln due to the short CD. In O1s you can Holmgang both Twinbolt after Charybdis combos, in O2s you can holmgang every tankbuster, in O3s you can Holmgang every other Critical Hit, and in O4s you can cheese the tank swaps for Thunder and for Delta Attack, making the fight quite a bit easier.

[Launched]

I'd say it has more mitigation than any other tank. Not to mention Holmgang, arguably the best tank invuln due to the short CD. In O1s you can Holmgang both Twinbolt after Charybdis combos, in O2s you can holmgang every tankbuster, in O3s you can Holmgang every other Critical Hit, and in O4s you can cheese the tank swaps for Thunder and for Delta Attack, making the fight quite a bit easier.

Cooldowns don't make a difference. Anything beyond what you need to comfortably survive is pretty much a waste. A PLD/DRK combo can tank any fight easily, and swapping one out for a WAR doesn't mean you'll see any noticeable dps increase from less tank stance or more healer dps uptime. Right now PLD/DRK has the 5 fastest kills on both A3S and A4S, so where does WAR's supposedly superior mitigation and dps actually make a difference? There are fast WAR groups too, of course, but why doesn't WAR outperform the other two in speedruns where utility is less important and maximising dps is incredibly important?

In O2S you can LD > HG > LD the first 3 Evilspheres, and at this point I don't think groups should be seeing the 4th. I'm sure there are plenty of average groups not even seeing the 3rd now. In O4S you can LD all 3 Delta Attacks and have Hallowed for the 1st and 3rd Double Attacks. O3S isn't really threatening when all 3 tanks gain a ~33% mitigation cooldown from Awareness. You can mitigate a lot of Critical Hit's damage with just Awareness, TBN, Sheltron/Intervention and Cover, leaving other cooldowns like Rampart and Shadow Wall free for autoattacks.

Holmgang is great, but its strength is exaggerated. All 3 tanks can tank any fight just fine, and it's completely unnecessary even for speedruns which is shown by all the groups that don't have a WAR. Why rely so much on a cooldown that leaves you at 1hp when you have "free" skills like Sheltron/Intervention and TBN to make everything survivable? You'll need healing either way unless you use Defiance for Equilibrium, which you really don't want to do.

[Gojin]

yes warrior is weakest of the tanks

[Hierro]

For daily roulettes, I believe WAR's the strongest. You have the most options to put out serious damage while remaining tanky. You can go into deliverance and never worry about what comes next because you have many cooldowns. You can even pop unchained while in defiance. If you're especially confident, you can use IR for 6 decimates. Zerk's shortened CD means it's now available for every pull. Basically, you can rely on WAR to give you fastest dungeons thanks to its top tier AoE/single target and competent tankiness.

I feel DRK is the tankiest, given you stay in grit and keep TBN on cooldown. But given the limitations for blood price and how that mixes with delirium, I suppose you have nothing better to do than to stay in grit anyways. This is all in the context of dungeon pulls.

For EX primals, according to fflogs the tank with the highest dps is WAR if you ignore the two PLDs on susano ex who were given single target balances by double ast.

[Kalocin]

I feel DRK is the tankiest, given you stay in grit and keep TBN on cooldown. But given the limitations for blood price and how that mixes with delirium, I suppose you have nothing better to do than to stay in grit anyways. This is all in the context of dungeon pulls.

Aside from trash mobs (and if your healer is good you probably won't) you never stay in grit past the first power slash (or two if it makes you more comfortable), as Blood Weapon just destroys Blood Price in effectiveness. Likewise, using TBN on CD isn't common outside of trash pulls as it is usually saved for tank busters or big AoEs (otherwise you'd be shooting yourself in the foot).

[Lyth]

...

If you played WAR in HW, you'll probably have an even easier time in SW. It no longer has mandatory buffs to shoehorn it into a raid spot (i.e. 100% uptime raid mitigation is gone and there are alternatives for slashing), but as long as you're semi-competent, you shouldn't have difficulty finding groups or clearing content.

The Defiance vs. Shield Oath debate has been floating around since ARR doesn't actually have any merit to it. Someone who is struggling on WAR is going to have an even worse of a time on PLD or DRK.

[F_Maximillian]

War's raid utility exists in how strong their cooldowns are. Look at fights like o3s and o4s, war makes an ideal tank for both these fights because of how perfectly their cooldowns line up. They do great damage, have great survival, and can change how mechanics are handled to make things easier for everyone. They may not outright have any x buff to others in party but that doesn't mean they have no utility. People are just parroting the whiners that don't know how to adapt and got too used to war being blatantly overpowered in heavensward.

[Capn_Goggles]

WAR is not the weakest. It has problems and isn't quite rewarding enough for its difficulty of mastery, but in its current state it's just a little undertuned rather than outright weak. DRK on the other hand has a broken mess of a kit that's both unfun* and the least effective of the three tanks.

*at least by my standards. I consider using one combo an entire fight to be excessively boring.

[Thaelon]

When someone says WAR is weakest they are just referring to raids, and truthfully the lack of raid utility with other classes bringing slash debuff now they are the "weakest". I do think War is more difficult then ever much more structures on rotation then ever before and much more them the other tanks! No tank is more penalized for getting caught in a mechanic with infuriate up.

[Lyth]

...

WAR isn't weak in raid content either. It has the highest dps out of the three tanks and the biggest free mitigation kit. The cooldown rotation for V4S is easier when you have a WAR present, and it's a fairly solid MT choice for V3S.You might not have your own little parlour trick to impress your friends with, like a penchant for blowing bubbles or sprouting wings, but that's made up for with significant personal utility and quality of life features.

Burst dps is significantly easier to work with than sustained dps, because each individual globals matter less to you than it does to other jobs, as long as you don't do something silly like Berserk-IR when the boss is afk.

I think the initial memorisation of openers/Berserk might make someone who is completely new to mmos a bit nervous, but they seem more straightforward and more spammy than their HW variants. Basically, if you could do it in HW, you can definitely do it now.