Of Tanking and WoD

Bad thing about being a tank: Long queues because you only need three per 24 people.

Good thing about being a tank: You probably have something to actually do, much like in ST, whereas in LotA you ran around, stood around, stood around and pushed buttons, fell asleep.

Bad thing about being a tank: Good luck getting tanks to communicate so the start of each raid you three can just eyeball each other and your respective gear and disposition to try and figure out how much of a freakin' problem they're going to be.

Good thing about being a tank: No competitors for your loot.

Bad thing about being a tank with everything but the chest piece: It's on the last effing boss and empirical evidence shows it has a roughly .000003% drop rate.

Good thing about NOT being a tank: This tank will stick with you until the bitter end every time! :D

Thank your tanks.

I already thank my tanks by giving them (and healers/exceptional DPS) my commendations. Every game I ever try tanking I end up panicking (even in easy content) and sweat like like it's 40 degrees outside, so good job. :)

*sigh*

Off tanking?

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Originally Posted by radioactive_lego

*sigh*

Off tanking?

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What

what is this even

All I know is Infuriate+Unchained+Berserk+Overpower+Provoke ad nauseam.

OH

WAIT

That's that thing where someone else taunts the Wolfsbane!

THE THING THAT NEVER HAPPENS UNTIL YOU YELL ABOUT IT

I'm new to tanking, and I like it, but I also kinda hate tanking raids. It feels weird having 3 tanks and you have to roll a dice to see who's tanking the next boss, or in my case be the first guy charging at the boss with a small army backing you up.

I finished leveling my WAR about three days ago now. It was my first tank class in any MMO I've ever played. It's nerve wracking. @.@

However, my first major tank experience came from WoD where I just kinda stood around for like, the first two runs and then was blessed with two other lazy tanks who just didn't want to pull so I had to step up.

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Originally Posted by Mahri

Bad thing about being a tank: Good luck getting tanks to communicate so the start of each raid you three can just eyeball each other and your respective gear and disposition to try and figure out how much of a freakin' problem they're going to be.

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I had a run this past Sunday where this happened. All three of us eyeballed each other and they came to the conclusion that because I was only i108 that I was not up to par and therefore ignored me completely. I would grab adds on the side I was on (having moved into the spot I wanted to be ready) and then the other tank would come over and pull them off me with provoke and such and leave the other side to beat up on healers.

They then only asked each other which of them would tank certain bosses...

The entire time I was like, "Whatever, I don't mind being the background tank" but then I kept pulling hate from them even out of Defiance. When one of the tanks died to Angra Mainyu, it went straight to me and I tanked it fine until my healers died and then it went wild because the other tank was no where close to us in enmity. So they excluded me even though I was fine and actually kept accidentally out dpsing them and stealing aggro.

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Originally Posted by Mahri

Bad thing about being a tank with everything but the chest piece: It's on the last effing boss and empirical evidence shows it has a roughly .000003% drop rate.

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This was my bane... The body just would not drop.

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Originally Posted by Colorful

Every game I ever try tanking I end up panicking (even in easy content) and sweat like like it's 40 degrees outside, so good job. :)

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This is literally me. I'm a wreck inside whenever I tank. I'm nervous and the pulls are so scary to me. I always imagine that I pull a boss and it's just gonna go wild while I fight for hate. It's always a surprise when I pull and the boss just stays put on me. @.@

JP DF's way

A takes left
B takes center/MT
C takes right

If B is new or not well geared enough they can ask other tanks to MT

Good thing about weekly lockout : You can roll greed and get pretty much anything you want (I got tank chest piece as DRG)

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Originally Posted by Sadana

I must admit, I thought everyone did this. >.> Isn't it kind of logical to divide up mobs/bosses according to party position? Though a new transfer to my FC was surprised at how organized CT was on a JP server...

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It's only logical. But then again, I've heard some ridiculous stories about tanks trying to out-aggro each other in CT, surely just a myth hopefully.

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Originally Posted by MaethusXion

The EU way for WoD seems to be this exactly, except for Cerberus. Cerberus goes:

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The composition just kind of sticked from the previous CT raids, but both do work well enough, I guess.

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Originally Posted by mosaicex

JP DF's way

A takes left
B takes center/MT
C takes right

If B is new or not well geared enough they can ask other tanks to MT

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I must admit, I thought everyone did this. >.> Isn't it kind of logical to divide up mobs/bosses according to party position? Though a new transfer to my FC was surprised at how organized CT was on a JP server...

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Originally Posted by mosaicex

JP DF's way

A takes left
B takes center/MT
C takes right

If B is new or not well geared enough they can ask other tanks to MT

Good thing about weekly lockout : You can roll greed and get pretty much anything you want (I got tank chest piece as DRG)

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The EU way for WoD seems to be this exactly, except for Cerberus. Cerberus goes:

A - Adds
B - Belly(get eaten)
C - Chains/MT

Unless, of course, you get that one person that facepulls everything and locks people out of the rooms... or the tank fighting for boss control... or the tank lack of control on trash rooms...

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Originally Posted by Bigcat9715

It feels weird having 3 tanks and you have to roll a dice to see who's tanking the next boss, or in my case be the first guy charging at the boss with a small army backing you up.

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This is a legit gripe, but hard to reconcile. Nobody really wants to communicate intent beyond ready checks and just charging right in. I've run it so many times now that it no longer feels worth it to try. Just assume you're the MT. If someone steps up and keeps aggro steadily, particularly the bosses, then it's fine to step out and turn off Defiance/turn on Sword Oath and just whack things, but be ready to switch back into tank mode if that one dies.

Now then, there's also the situation where you've got things under control but another tank suddenly decides they want it instead, but I'm i110 and if I go all-out I can make an i130 PLD look like a chump.

Well, aggro-wise.

Mitigation-wise, well, uhhhh Hey thanks healers you guys are great. :D :D

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Originally Posted by MaethusXion

u get that one person that facepulls everything and locks people out of the rooms... or the tank fighting for boss control... or the tank lack of control on trash rooms...

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I make a habit of always checking "Join Party in Progress".

Thanks to this and getting locked out, I have discovered that /sdance matches the rhythm of the Cerberus/Xande/Phlegethon boss music perfectly.

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Originally Posted by MaethusXion

The EU way for WoD seems to be this exactly, except for Cerberus. Cerberus goes:

A - Adds
B - Belly(get eaten)
C - Chains/MT

Unless, of course, you get that one person that facepulls everything and locks people out of the rooms... or the tank fighting for boss control... or the tank lack of control on trash rooms...

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How I've seen JP groups do Cerberus is that A or C will get eaten, and the other will do the adds (one group will call out in alliance chat which one their group's gonna do). Then B takes the boss as usual. For chains it's usually just whoever is closest or starts moving in that direction first.

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Originally Posted by MaethusXion

The EU way for WoD seems to be this exactly, except for Cerberus. Cerberus goes:

A - Adds
B - Belly(get eaten)
C - Chains/MT

Unless, of course, you get that one person that facepulls everything and locks people out of the rooms... or the tank fighting for boss control... or the tank lack of control on trash rooms...

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All DPS method seems to be the fastest of the strategies I've seen so far.

All DPS go into Cerb while all Tanks and Healers stay out side to tank and heal against Cerb and Adds. (1 healer can go in to keep the Unknowns from causing issues if they want but normally only 1 or 0 DPS players would die from a Unknown without a healer)

If the DPS know how to effectively DPS in Cerb belly then Cerb boss fight can be done in matter of 1 minute or less.

I like going the DPS-get-eaten strategy too. It CAN be disastrous, but it's quick when it works. It's good for the first attempt at least.

One time, though, I accidentally got mini'd while main-tanking. It didn't really cause many problems but it was completely hilarious.

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Originally Posted by Mahri

This is a legit gripe, but hard to reconcile. Nobody really wants to communicate intent beyond ready checks and just charging right in. I've run it so many times now that it no longer feels worth it to try. Just assume you're the MT. If someone steps up and keeps aggro steadily, particularly the bosses, then it's fine to step out and turn off Defiance/turn on Sword Oath and just whack things, but be ready to switch back into tank mode if that one dies.

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Pretty much how I operate since I'm the most geared tank my WoD 9 times out of 10. It's pretty much the only way I've found to actually tank in WoD because any time I try to take a few seconds to clarify roles, a DPS will almost instantly shout "Just pull already!" because they're too impatient to wait 10 seconds to avoid a wipe.

When tanking, I don't care either way which I do. Sometimes I do prefer to OT, so that way I know the adds situations will be handled. Too many times I have seen the OT's not perform duties correctly in those situations. So I let em tank. I grab adds. We all win.

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Originally Posted by mosaicex

It's only logical. But then again, I've heard some ridiculous stories about tanks trying to out-aggro each other in CT, surely just a myth hopefully.

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oooh they do. My alt is a tank and isnt very high ilvl but I can still survive mt. Soo no one jumped in on first boss so I did. And it was fine until our warrior took hate from me. So I asked if he could remove defiance and got the answer "hmmmmmm no xd"
Later on Cerberus we went with ABC and I was gonna tank boss but he just provoked and took boss instead. I wish we could vote kick players from other groups because people trolling are just lonely people who wants to ruin others fun

lol, I'm i120 or so, and a career WAR. I was tanking Second Coil before FCoB came out, and haven't really done any FCoB. that being said, when it comes to the Crysal Tower raid(s) I just assume I'm MT. Last night I was running Labrynth of the Ancients, and a couple times another tank came up, voked off of me, but didn't actually pull threat off me.

pro Tip for tanks: Use Provoke right before Rage of Halone/Butcher's Block. That will give you your best chance at sealing the deal on threat lock down. Don't voke, right before I use Butcher's Block lol.

Anyroad, I just typically assume I'm MT. If will run up, watch the map, make sure players are all in the arena (ready Checks are too slow) I'll take a pause to see if the other tanks are running in, but not a long one, before I just charge in myself. If somebody does pull threat and seem to want to MT, I turn Defiance off, make sure hey have full threat, and then wheel around to the side to avoid getting cleaved.

on primal (NA) I tpically see people using the Adds Belly Chains method on Cerb.

Picking your raid MT based on the party # you randomly get? eh, I guess it's a good enough method, but you can get i80 or lower tanks in LOTA, and I don't think it makes sense to let an i70/80PLD over an i120/i130 WAR. (I mean, we're talking about double the amount of HP. <3 SCH's lol)

^unless the i70/80 tank REALLY wants to, in which case, they can ask in /a, and I will be content to let them try. As long as the healers aren't pulling threat I have np dialing back.

i love to mt because i dont really have to deal with mechanics. but i dont like to die while being mt it ruins my reputation. hate when healers let me die. i always do a adds b belly c chains and mt but i would like to give all dps in belly a go

well i usually tank and if im on b and c tank is undergeared i state in chat ill mt

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

All DPS method seems to be the fastest of the strategies I've seen so far.

All DPS go into Cerb while all Tanks and Healers stay out side to tank and heal against Cerb and Adds. (1 healer can go in to keep the Unknowns from causing issues if they want but normally only 1 or 0 DPS players would die from a Unknown without a healer)

If the DPS know how to effectively DPS in Cerb belly then Cerb boss fight can be done in matter of 1 minute or less.

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I don't like this strategy due to all the time DPS waste waiting to get small, waiting to get eaten, and waiting to zone in and out. People say it's faster, but it doesn't make any sense to be faster with so much DPS time lost.

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Originally Posted by Mishini_Dracoto

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^unless the i70/80 tank REALLY wants to, in which case, they can ask in /a, and I will be content to let them try. As long as the healers aren't pulling threat I have np dialing back.

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Only problem is, an i70/80 tank is not going to hold hate against a well geared and capable dps.

Just like in WoD when one tank grabs the 3 garms on first trash and proceeds to lose 2 of them to me as I use fire II.

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Originally Posted by Mishini_Dracoto

Anyroad, I just typically assume I'm MT. If will run up, watch the map, make sure players are all in the arena (ready Checks are too slow) I'll take a pause to see if the other tanks are running in, but not a long one, before I just charge in myself.

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I'm the same. I don't give very long for other tanks to "volunteer" as tanks -- If everyone is past the zone line before a pull, I'll let my healer know and charge ahead. Most of the time I'll default to main tanking the whole place, despite how much I hate tanking Cloud of Darkness and Cerberus.
Because of this, I tend to ask people for the "all dps in" method, because I'll me main tanking no matter which alliance I'm thrown in, and won't get myself mini'd and eaten in such cases.

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Originally Posted by Mishini_Dracoto

If somebody does pull threat and seem to want to MT, I turn Defiance off, make sure hey have full threat, and then wheel around to the side to avoid getting cleaved.

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That's where you and I differ. Personally, I'll see it and take it as a challenge. When that happens, I'll usually have a threat-battle with 'em.
If someone asked me why I do this, I wouldn't really know the answer. By thinking about it for a second, I suppose it's because another tank is probably the only thing that can provide challenging enmity to benchmark against, so it's making me naturally try and see if I can match/beat it, despite the risk involved (spinning the boss, getting us or others cleaved, etc.)

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Originally Posted by mosaicex

I've heard some ridiculous stories about tanks trying to out-aggro each other in CT, surely just a myth hopefully.

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Though the first run in CT I did as a tank my co-tank and I worked together and the other tanks didn't wanna start nothing, I've seen in previous runs just tanks who are animals towards each other.

The CT pissing contests were not fun to watch because the skeletons for instance are being fought over by two tanks and eventually it dies and blasts raid wide damage. KB is fought over and IG is roaming wild, mowing down healers.

A myth? I wish.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

I don't like this strategy due to all the time DPS waste waiting to get small, waiting to get eaten, and waiting to zone in and out. People say it's faster, but it doesn't make any sense to be faster with so much DPS time lost.

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We agree to this. I don't notice any difference in terms of how long it takes when I'm standing around with three Wolfsbanes. I only notice that when there are no willing OTs, the wipes become a bit more imminent because adds are left to roam wild.

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Originally Posted by Docent

Personally, I'll see it and take it as a challenge. When that happens, I'll usually have a threat-battle with 'em.
If someone asked me why I do this, I wouldn't really know the answer. By thinking about it for a second, I suppose it's because another tank is probably the only thing that can provide challenging enmity to benchmark against, so it's making me naturally try and see if I can match/beat it, despite the risk involved (spinning the boss, getting us or others cleaved, etc.)

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See? Tank pissing contest. Despite the risks, they wanna see who the biggest enmity machine in the room is.
I'm like Misenklauph, if you voke it off me and you have better gear/if you can hold it, I'll let you keep it and I'll go to work on adds. It's the harder, more recognized job in terms of your healers. If you can't hold it, then I'll just shake my head and continue on and tomahawk the adds that they are ignoring while they attempt to steal the boss from me some more.

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Originally Posted by Ophie-Mio

The CT pissing contests were not fun to watch because the skeletons for instance are being fought over by two tanks and eventually it dies and blasts raid wide damage. KB is fought over and IG is roaming wild, mowing down healers.

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Labyrinth of the Ancient is an old raid, where there were many mistakes / learning errors from the designers.

I'll start with Behemoth: Tanks having a "pissing contest" here doesn't make much sense -- all 6 tanks have some task assigned to them usually - It's a pretty simple fight, with clear responsibilities for all. However, with the current gear level, you don't need the 4 tower tanks anymore -- the towers automatically reset when Behemoth "Grrrrrraaaarghs", from what I've observed. In any case, it should be 1 tank on Behemoth, and all tanks (1 acting as tank, others as DPS) on the IGs.

For Bone Dragon: This is the biggest encounter design error. There's 6 tanks, but really one is the MT, and then skeletons spawn in pairs at fixed HP%. If the DPS stops to kill the skeletons, then you have rarely more than 2 live skeletons up at a time. That's 3 tanks doing something, and 3 trying to help who end up screwing things up. The "pissing contest" here is due to every tank TRYING to be helpful.

For Thanatos: Here we face a new problem: A boss that way too often is never picked off the "main tank" who is suddenly unable to interact with him. This is a fight where tanks are meant to provoke off each other and switch main tanking (so where those so called pissing-contest are actually the "proper" way to handle it). For once, all "off-tanks" have plenty of targets to keep them busy. Probably so many, actually, that none of them think of dealing with the main boss when it's their turn.

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You see a lot less issues in raids like ST and WoD, where the encounter design is much clearer, and the MT doesn't have to tank swap or anything of the sorts.

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Originally Posted by Ophie-Mio

See? Tank pissing contest. Despite the risks, they wanna see who the biggest enmity machine in the room is.

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Yep. A flaw of mine, and one I share no matter my job. I'll try to out-threat, out-tank, out-DPS or out-Heal people no matter the job I'm on, assuming I can. Everything is a race, a competition or a chance to prove myself, even if I'm only proving it to myself.

That said, with the gear I use when main tanking, there's only two type of tanks who'll steal the mob off me and actually cause the issues listed above (cleaving, spinning, etc.):
1) Tanks that are even more geared and aggressive than I am. In which case I won't be able to steal it back. (but I will try my best to match their threat line)
2) Tanks that are using provoke. I will never out-provoke another tank. But if you steal it from me that way, you better generate more enmity per click than me, or it'll just come back.

In other words, there's being a douche on purpose (standing opposite sides, using provoke, trying to "be the one tanking", getting people killed), and then there's being competitive and trying to prove to yourself you can out-threat the guy with better gear (staying elbow to elbow with him, using cooldowns, potions and every tool in your toolkit to build extra threat, watching who's the target of target, etc.)

By constantly trying to push my limits and learn just what I'm able to do, I try to better myself and my understanding of my own capabilities. To me, that's a pretty key element of my playstyle.
Meeting people who are on the same job and are better (gear or skill) players, then try to "compete" to match/beat them is one of the easiest way to know if you can push that limit even further.

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Originally Posted by Ophie-Mio

Snip.

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For all I know, we are long-lost twins.

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Originally Posted by Docent

Snip.

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our Behemoth example, I suffered the opposite last night. Maybe everybody thought that was the case. M co-tank was an FC member of mine, and we queued the two of us. OK, our WHM was trolling us almost the entire raid. Aside from that, I called MT on Behemoth, and he called Giants. Why? our Healers (even Especially the one trolling us) proved they could handle healing us.

The other tanks, all just DPS's behemoth with Defiance/Shield oath on. Two towers broke before the first Roar. Let me tell you, that made the rest of the fight far more difficult than it needed to be. It didn't help that we bet I could Survive a meteor, and due to floor dmg etc, even popping Vengeance, IB, ToB, I was still down to 2Khp after Meteor landed.

******Point Is*****

I understand your desire to esablish a bench mark for who holds more threat, however, you should only really do that when you are in a party with another tank, and two healers, who have agreed to this before hand. Otherwise, you are just being an MP sponge by taking cleave damage you could Should have avoided.

God forbid you are one of those tanks, trying to pull threat, and standing with the DPS. So many times I see somebody voke+BB or RoH and get the whole alliance cleaved by some hard hitting attack. Then I get blamed for losing threat.

Get BB ready, wait for their BB or RoH to go off, voke + BB. Threat is mine again. #Winning. If I want to Win harder, unchained, Infuriate, internal Release, bloodbath, berserk, provoke, Inner Beast, butcher's block + keep DPS'ing. In your face any-other-tank-but-me :D

The only thing I hate in WoD from tanks is when they don't keep Angra Mainyu facing a single direction, the need to keep alternating the floor AoE red/blue becomes very annoying when Angra Mainyu is spinning around all over the place and so have no idea where the red and blue is going to end up. When have three tanks new to the place it is pretty simple to say tank in the middle for AoE'ing the trash mobs if they all over the place so I have no problem with that. I am not a tank but I don't recall any other boss having anything uber tricky to tank in WoD from my perspective though I could be wrong. Casters and healers I imagine have the more tricky jobs in WoD.

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Originally Posted by Mishini_Dracoto

Our Behemoth example, I suffered the opposite last night. Maybe everybody thought that was the case. M co-tank was an FC member of mine, and we queued he wo of us. OK, our WHM was trolling us almost the entire raid. Aside from that, I called MT on Behemoth, and he called Giants. Why? our Healers (even Especially the one trolling us) proved they could handle healing us.

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I'll have to check the towers next time I run LotA for my Carboncoat. I had my eyes on a tower last time I ran it (I wasn't MT that run, someone else was more aggressive than me!), and I never had to click it. I will double-check if it really resets on its own, or if a sneaky lalafell kept hitting it in my stead.

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Originally Posted by Mishini_Dracoto

God forbid you are one of those tanks, trying to pull threat, and standing with the DPS. So many times I see somebody voke+BB or RoH and get the whole alliance cleaved by some hard hitting attack. Then I get blamed for losing threat.

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I am responsible in my stupidity. If I am "in a pissing contest", it'll only be with someone trying to steal it from ME (As in, I was the MT, I pulled and positioned mob, and am facing the right way, and suddenly another tank challenges me).
If you pulled before me and I'm in the same raid, you can believe me I'll be out of defiance faster than you can say "snap!" and just popping my 2 DPS combo over and over (hey, I'm giving you extra damage and debuff the boss!), and simply watch my threat to be 2nd in line in case you die. I don't challenge tanks that pull before me and let me DPS -- I'm just going to start to compete for damage dealt with the DPSers instead.

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Originally Posted by Snugglebutt

The only thing I hate in WoD from tanks is when they don't keep Angra Mainyu facing a single direction, the need to keep alternating the floor AoE red/blue becomes very annoying when Angra Mainyu is spinning around all over the place and so have no idea where the red and blue is going to end up.

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For Angra: If the MT moves in and out fast enough, the boss shouldn't spin when he does the blue/red floors.

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Originally Posted by Snugglebutt

I am not a tank but I don't recall any other boss having anything uber tricky to tank in WoD from my perspective though I could be wrong. Casters and healers I imagine have the more tricky jobs in WoD.

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Other than having a brain, some HP and defensive cooldown, MT tanking duty in WoD is the easiest job in the raid, by far. I have yet to learn the mechanics of all the bosses, as I've almost never ran them on DPS or Healer, but as a tank, I pretty much 1-2-3 and pop cooldowns and it's a win. (Position the boss, move out of AoE, but those are given)

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Originally Posted by Docent

That's where you and I differ. Personally, I'll see it and take it as a challenge. When that happens, I'll usually have a threat-battle with 'em.
If someone asked me why I do this, I wouldn't really know the answer. By thinking about it for a second, I suppose it's because another tank is probably the only thing that can provide challenging enmity to benchmark against, so it's making me naturally try and see if I can match/beat it, despite the risk involved (spinning the boss, getting us or others cleaved, etc.)

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See, now.

This is not good.

The competition is completely in your head, and all you're doing is creating a distraction by forcing your ego-trip onto others rather than helping the group succeed. You are choosing to be part of the problem, and not part of the solution.

Please do not do this.

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Originally Posted by Docent

Other than having a brain, some HP and defensive cooldown, MT tanking duty in WoD is the easiest job in the raid, by far.

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See, I'm not totally unreasonable, I agree with you here.

For Mangra, I think (s)he was stating if you don't take Mangra in the center, not about spinning Angra when Angra uses that attack. If you, for example, tanked Mangra near the edge . . . the fight would be far more complicated than is required.

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Originally Posted by Mahri

Please do not do this.

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Easier to ask to fix a character flaw than fix it. I am aware I have this problem, which is the first step.
The next step is getting my 200 remaining lights and probably never run WoD on tank anymore :P

Keep in mind that for the majority of the runs I join, there is never an issue. I just naturally run in first, MT the whole run, and everybody leaves happy.
Very rarely I will actually notice that some other tank decides to MT, and I'll just be the OT and merrily DPS the whole run.
Only that remaining 1% is where someone thinks they can out-threat me after I pull and come up to the boss and try to take over.

Like I said, I won't provoke it off him, but unless he got more STR/Weapon Damage than me, it'll just come back to me, and he's going to get cleaved for no reason other than trying to beat me at my job.

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Originally Posted by Mishini_Dracoto

For Mangra, I think (s)he was stating if you don't take Mangra in the center, not about spinning Angra when Angra uses that attack. If you, for example, tanked Mangra near the edge . . . the fight would be far more complicated than is required.

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Oh, I've never seen that done before, so I had no idea what happens if tanked on the side. I always tanked it right where it spawns, and that seemed to be ideal with the whole 4 quadrant and 1/2 red/blue floor thing anyway :P

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Originally Posted by Docent

I'll start with Behemoth: Tanks having a "pissing contest" here doesn't make much sense -- all 6 tanks have some task assigned to them usually - It's a pretty simple fight, with clear responsibilities for all.

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It doesn't, however, tanks wanna feel important so they wanna be in the light. They think that the tank that tanks KB is the head honcho and THE MAN! *fistpump*. So people still fight at times over him. From what I've observed though, I've still noticed tanks doing the towers. You never know what kind of dps you're gonna get in there and more often than not, on the datacenter I'm on, we have half of the alliance made up of people who are right at home in CT in terms of ilevel.

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Originally Posted by Docent

For Bone Dragon: This is the biggest encounter design error. There's 6 tanks, but really one is the MT, and then skeletons spawn in pairs at fixed HP%. If the DPS stops to kill the skeletons, then you have rarely more than 2 live skeletons up at a time.

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If the higher ilevel DPS automatically switch to the skeletons, there's problems. A lot of them go balls to the wall on them before they are even pulled to the vaguely correct area, usually leading to two at the same spot or literally right where they spawned. :/

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Originally Posted by Docent

That's 3 tanks doing something, and 3 trying to help who end up screwing things up. The "pissing contest" here is due to every tank TRYING to be helpful.

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It's time like this where I wish people allowed tanks to converse more or everyone had the same idea of what to do. When I run CT, I tend to ask my other tank what they wanna do more of. If they wanna try to MT more, I'm on adds the entire time. At that point, I'm gonna get myself over to a direct side corresponding to if I'm A/B/C and take those skeletons.

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Originally Posted by Docent

For Thanatos: Here we face a new problem: A boss that way too often is never picked off the "main tank" who is suddenly unable to interact with him. This is a fight where tanks are meant to provoke off each other and switch main tanking (so where those so called pissing-contest are actually the "proper" way to handle it).

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From the runs I've done, I don't think this is a problem. The OT's keep busy with adds and Thanatos gets to have his individual fun. It's rare for us if more than the first two parties go invisible before he's being brought down. Normally, the issue I see is one of the tanks isn't geared enough compared to another tank or isn't as used to the fight. So they provoke Thanatos but then can't keep it.

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Originally Posted by Docent

Oh, I've never seen that done before, so I had no idea what happens if tanked on the side. I always tanked it right where it spawns, and that seemed to be ideal with the whole 4 quadrant and 1/2 red/blue floor thing anyway :P

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This totally happened the other day! A dps pulled the boss and two tanks just went at like chihuahuas over who was gonna grab it. They blew through provokes one after another but nearly could seal the hate fast enough. Angra did the double floor thing early in that fight and it was in the corner, the focal point, so everyone freaked out. He did it back to back too. @.@

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Originally Posted by Ophie-Mio

It's time like this where I wish people allowed tanks to converse more or everyone had the same idea of what to do. When I run CT, I tend to ask my other tank what they wanna do more of. If they wanna try to MT more, I'm on adds the entire time. At that point, I'm gonna get myself over to a direct side corresponding to if I'm A/B/C and take those skeletons.

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My solution to all my LotA problems recently has been to queue as Marauder and just be a pseudo DPS. There's no need for 6 tanks, so I erase myself from most of the equation, and I still have provoke, vengeance and threat moves, if I ever need to save the day.

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Originally Posted by Docent

That's where you and I differ. Personally, I'll see it and take it as a challenge. When that happens, I'll usually have a threat-battle with 'em.
If someone asked me why I do this, I wouldn't really know the answer. By thinking about it for a second, I suppose it's because another tank is probably the only thing that can provide challenging enmity to benchmark against, so it's making me naturally try and see if I can match/beat it, despite the risk involved (spinning the boss, getting us or others cleaved, etc.)

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Oh god please stop doing this. It's all in your head. It's not a contest. You're the kind of tank that makes those runs just awful. I'd rather your contest be "lets see if I can make this raid finish WITHOUT causing tank problems" not to be actively causing them.

Hey, Guys... Teamwork 101 here: Fight the enemies, not each other. ^^v

If each team knows their part and goes after their usual mobs, there's no pissing contest and the run goes pretty smoothly.

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Originally Posted by Docent

That's where you and I differ. Personally, I'll see it and take it as a challenge. When that happens, I'll usually have a threat-battle with 'em. If someone asked me why I do this, I wouldn't really know the answer. By thinking about it for a second, I suppose it's because another tank is probably the only thing that can provide challenging enmity to benchmark against, so it's making me naturally try and see if I can match/beat it, despite the risk involved (spinning the boss, getting us or others cleaved, etc.)

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I agree with others who prefer you do not do this. However if you can't stop yourself or use some self control on this aspect then at least make sure your standing in the same spot/angle of the mob like Angra Mainyu which I mentioned before as an example.

One of recent runs I did we had three tanks competing with each other while standing in different positions so Angra Mainyu kept spinning around like crazy which when popped it's red/blue ground AoE most of the entire raid group would get hit because no-one knew where the zones were going to spawn. It actually led to a wipe. So if you must compete with each other out of ego perhaps then do it from the same spot not different spots on the map or in different positions around the boss.

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Originally Posted by Sadana

If each team knows their part and goes after their usual mobs, there's no pissing contest and the run goes pretty smoothly.

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In a perfect world maybe.

But dammit big roegadyn warrior in coerl gold swimsuit NEEDS to MT but poor hyur highlander paladin with barely iLV95 already announced MT!

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Originally Posted by mosaicex

JP DF's way

A takes left
B takes center/MT
C takes right

If B is new or not well geared enough they can ask other tanks to MT

It's only logical. But then again, I've heard some ridiculous stories about tanks trying to out-aggro each other in CT, surely just a myth hopefully.

The composition just kind of sticked from the previous CT raids, but both do work well enough, I guess.

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As someone from a NA Database. Whenever I go into WoD, I have this mindset that's how things would play out. However, people tend to mix it up and make things for themselves complicated. Not to mention there will always be asshole tanks that are out there to out-aggro someone. Once I gotten my tank chest piece, I did not want the burden of tanking there anymore.

I cant remember how many times I've had to "tank" the wolfsbane on my healer during Cerberus. Actually I end up tanking a lot of adds during trash, because half the time all the tanks are on the big add auto-attacking... or something.

I do commend off-tanks that do something, or good main tanks that don't get hit by avoidable AoE.

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Originally Posted by Docent

Easier to ask to fix a character flaw than fix it. I am aware I have this problem, which is the first step.
The next step is getting my 200 remaining lights and probably never run WoD on tank anymore :P

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I'd try to avoid saying anything if I didn't know precisely how you feel. :P

Still, let's call out bad habits for precisely what they are.