Quote Originally Posted by Shinkyo View Post
This is quite an over statement.
While I would agree that WAR loses more defensive option in DPS stance by not having IB, the combinaison of their long duration, short CD mitigation, and frequent invul make up for it.
They are more squishy but certainly not by a huge margin. Block is the main feature that puts PLD on top for passive mitigation.

I don't think WAR even needs IB to have their CD toolkit compete with PLD/DRK in actual fights.

And WAR is actually a pretty bad OT compared to DRK/PLD because of their lack of utility. If you ain't sharing MT responsibility across both tanks to maximize CD uptime, then main reason to have WAR OT is because they are really good on adds.
War without IB is flat out worse than Drk or Pld in overall mitigation. Wars kit doesn't compete at all if you take out IB. That would be just like comparing Drks kit without TBN, or pld without shelltron. They are the cornerstone of their mitigation. Ive done this in more than a few posts, but here we go again.

Regarding mitigation:
* Tank Stance: General parity.
* Role skills: equal (obviously). Rampart/conv etc.
* Immunities: 'rough' parity. They are all good in distinct ways with their own pros and cons. This can be a thread unto itself so I will consider them roughly equal as they are all quite different and hard to quantify, but effective at their job. I don't want to side track into a war of immunities.
* 'Always up' CDs. Shelltron/TBN/IB: Again 'rough' parity. They are a little different with some pros/cons but fill the same functional role adequately as a frequent mitigation tool vs all damage types with near zero costs. (war locked behind defiance, but slightly better in a vacuum).
* 'big' CDs. veng/wall/sentinel. rough parity. (drk a smidge behind. 10% or timer. Your choice)
* 'other' CDs: Bullwark vs Raw Int vs Mind. Asymetrically balanced. 2 short CD, high uptime split between Phy and Magic (war/drk) vs a LOONG CD, less reliable (60%) but blocks all damage. I'd consider this 'rough' parity. The individual fights would determine whos is better here, but they are all pretty good in their own way.

Drk Stops here. Leftovers are:
Pld: Passage of arms. Super bulwark. Could be a CD, but I only ever see it actually used as raid mitigation so Ill ignore it for the purposes of personal mitigation.
Pld: Shield. Nuff said.
War: ToB. Fairly week skill for 2 min CD. Never used alone. Always paired with something. This is the 'extra' mitigation war brings over the other tanks and it is a fairly weak one. Its more often used to buff upheaval or 'oh shit' heal. But it is here and counts none the less.

Drk has a slightly weaker 'big' CD (30% vs pld 40% for a whole 10 sec) and no equivalent to ToB. War's trade for this is their best CD (IB) is inaccessible outside of defiance.

Would Drks be happy to lock TBN behind grit but get ToB in exchange? Heck well even throw in Pld 40% instead of 30% sentinel for that 10 seconds every 3 min. If you are trying to stay out of grit, is that a trade you would make? ToB for TBN? Absolutely not. Youd be crazy to give up an 20% HP boost every 15 sec for a 20% HP boost every 2 min. Sure youd be extra tough IN grit, just like war is super tough IN defiance. But dps tanking would take a serious hit.

TLDR: War isn't this bastion of defense its made out to be if you actually play it the way people play tanks in this game.