What is the General Consensus?

[Chrono_Rising]

Data:
War>Pld>Drk

Forum 'concensus':
War>>Pld>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Drk

War does most DPS. Pld a smidge behind war. Drk a smidge behind pld. Each by a couple % in damage.

Pld/War mitigation kits are solid and jockey for 1st based on how much a war is in tank stance. Drk is behind by X amount in mitigation (depending on how its measured. Its an inexact science) but still has enough mitigation to be effective in all content.

Group support: Pld by miles>War (shake it off)> Drk TBN. While nice, are not nearly as important as the volume on official forums suggests.

Drk is behind by a bit in every category that matters, but only by relatively small amounts. It's entirely usable. Just not optimal. But anything that is even a fraction of a % suboptimal is always slammed as 'useless', 'unplayable', 'broken' and 100 other hyperbolic terms.

There is truth to much of the forum complaints. But the extreme loudness exaggerates them on every count.

We are undervaluing these defensive utilities.

o5s: Cover and tempered will keeps your cotank on the boss. Shields from shake it off and divine veil make it so you can keep melee on the boss for head on.

o6s: Party shields make it so you can have the ranged take the stack mechanic by themselves freeing up hollowed ground for covering ground aoes on melee increasing uptime for the party.

o7s: Party shields save healer GCD's and can be alternated in a Divine veil and SiO pattern. Covering prey targets reduces healer babysitting on dps reducing the tank babysitting to regen. Passage of arms keeps the party closer for the boss beam at no dps loss increasing uptime.

o8s: Covering Hyperdrives reduces tick damage so it can be covered by a regen, covering a ranged for double wings increases cotank uptime during trick attack windows. Divine veil and shake it off alternate on Foresakens and light of judgement to save dps, and reduce healing GCDs. Intervention saves cotank mitigation giving more flexibility in handling mechanics.

Defensive utility is absolutely a big thing. Can healers and the party adjust having a dark knight? Sure. But why? This isn't just a meta crisis, this is a "is there a reason to bring a dark knight" crisis. Monk isn't a meta class, but there are reasons you might want to bring a monk. Some have pointed out that dark knights have mitigation for every attack, while true I haven't run into this issue on paladin either and feel I mitigate more than what I would do on dark knight. Maybe warrior runs dry from time to time, but you have your paladin there to share their mitigation with them.

Take everything all together and you are mitigating for less, costing your healers more GCDs healing you and your party, costing your group dps from healers, losing uptime for melees, and doing what still appears to be slightly less damage than the other two tanks. As others have said before me, each thing is little on its own, but a little here, a little there, and a little over there can add up to alot.