First off I'd like to remind certain posters NZ usually dominate or are very credible in every sport we touch outside of inferior sports like soccer, unlike certain countries who spent 70 years or something sucking at their national religion. It's nice NZ cricket is finally catching up to our national sporting standards.
So now that I've actually thought about todays comparison properly.... (tl;dr - I am wrong)
I instinctively thought Williamson was better at first post tbh, and looking back I think it was due to the "watching both play" thing because Kane just looks every inch the God when he gets in and general eye rolling at him being demoted below the likes of Mahela Jayawardene. I posted off the cuff without really thinking about why I thought that way.
I do think Williamson is more adaptable to different game situations (off the top of my head NZ don't win in the UAE or the West Indies without him setting up the game in the 3rd innings), but he's never had a series like Dravid in England, which is the best single series I have seen from an Asian batsman outside the standard Asian batsman's element and accentuates exactly why Dravid was so valuable to an Asian side in particular (he gave us a little preview in NZ 2002 where he and Richardson showed how timeless they both are).
Dravid did have long stretches of meh though along with the bowled meme, which probably played into my initial reaction too.
I think Williamson has a higher era value compared to Dravid, because Williamson stands out from the pack more in his era compared to Dravid in his (regardless of whether you think the average bowler is better or the average batsman is worse, this is a bowling era and decks are less homogenous). Dravid's talent against the moving ball was less valuable in Dravid's era, and I think he would do a lot better in Williamson's era than most of his contemporaries, but on the data we have Williamson walks into every side in the world currently and the World XI and Dravid was a less sure thing in his era.
Overall Dravid has had the better career but I will be mildly disappointed if Williamson does not have the better career when he retires, and Williamson at 30 years old is a better batsman than Dravid at the same age imo. Happy to concede after thinking about it that right now, I am wrong.
Era value is probably the best current argument I can think of for ranking Smith #2 of all time, if you were so inclined. I think it was Teja who posted the 2011 onwards (or maybe 2016 onwards?) bowling statistics a while back. They were ridiculous, and we're seeing it reflected in the records of current batsmen. A good middle order player is back to having a 40+ career average, and if you can scrape above an average of 35 opening then congratulations enjoy 50 test matches. Then over in the corner is Steve Smith, casually averaging 60.
Era value is why I put McGrath #1 of all quicks. I should probably bump my ranking of Shaun Pollock and maybe a few others to be consistent.