Seen this debate a couple times both here and on the reddit. I had a misconception about it at first, so I sat down to run the actual numbers.

(Apologies in advance to the Guardian players, this will be in Juggernaut terms.)

Baselines

* Aegis Assault CD: 12s

* Crushing Blow CD: 12s

* Retaliation CD: 6s

* Aegis Buff Duration: 20s

* Hord's Makashi Duration: 20s

* Blade Barricade Duration: 10s

* Leviathan's Duration: 10s

Note: Since Aegis by itself gives you +3% DR that you'd have 100% uptime on either way, the rest of this is written in terms of % DR on top of that. I.E. Makashi by itself is only a +2% DR increase as it gives you -3% +5% until you make the overlap happen.

The Rotation

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To start, we're just looking at how to maximize Hord's Makashi's passive by trying to have as much overlap as possible with Aegis Assault's buff as well. The only restriction on this uptime is you have to keep Blade Barricade up. Which, with its shorter duration, means reapplying it with Retaliation is going to cut your Aegis Assault uptime off.

If you do your opener with Aegis before Retaliation (which you should, because the Makashi buff will give you higher % DR even without the overlap), you're going to want to use Retaliation again right before Aegis comes of CD to maximize the amount of time you can have overlap before needing to re-up Blade Barricade.

In the first 20s of the fight, this means you'll have an additional 2% DR for 10s, and the additional 5% DR for the next 9s.

Up to the 48s mark, you're just reapplying Aegis on CD, but making sure to NOT reapply Barricade until the absolute last possible second. This works out to about 24s of uptime on +2% DR, and 22.5s of +5% DR.

48s is where you have your first "hold". Where you reapply Barricade early again while holding off on Aegis for about a whole GCD before you can use it. After this, 48s to 85s is about the same as above.

After 85s you're in a locked pattern where every 3rd Aegis is "held" for about 2 entire GCD's to give a window for an early reapplication of Barricade to maximize Aegis and Makashi's uptime.

If you're aware enough to keep that rotation going, it creates a repeating 27s loop where you have 10.5s of +2% additional DR and 16.5s of +5% additional DR.

The Numbers

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* Once you get past the 85s mark, the over-under on Hord's Makashi is +3.83% Damage Reduction.

* Leviathan's Hide gives you 2.5% for 10s on an ability with a 12s CD, this can be affected by Alacrity though (either from putting damage-focused pieces in your tank set, or from Guild perks, etc.)

* Leviathan's Hide at 12s CD is ~2.08% DR overall, which is -1.75% DR from Makashi.

* Leviathan's Hide at 11s CD is ~2.29% DR overall, which is -1.54% DR from Makashi.

* Leviathan's Hide at 100% uptime is still -1.33% DR from Makashi.

Now, the moment you hit more than 1 target with Leviathan's it is better, as even at full 12s CD it overall is 4.17% DR vs. 3.38%. Another thing to note is what you're giving up to use Makashi optimally. As stated, you have to really keep track of CD's and intentionally not use some at certain points, but by so doing you're also putting out less damage (and generating less threat). You could also argue you get a little more Rage back as you're not using that 1 Rage off the GCD every 6s.

Conclusion

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I don't necessarily see a clear winner here. In fights with absolutely no adds at all, Makashi is on top *if* you can force yourself to keep track of it. In fights with minimal adds, it's a matter of what your specific job is as main/off tank and if you want to try and keep track of Makashi. In fights with lots of adds Leviathan wins (but you all knew that already).

Hope this helped some people clear this one up? Personally I am probably just going to run Leviathan's because a maximum of +1.75% DR increase isn't worth the hassle to me.