About co-tanking

Hi everyone,

I've begun tanking with a Paladin last month (first playtrough so i'm kinda green in this game).

I just recently finished the ARR main storyline with the 3 available 8 man contents (1 trial and the two main story dungeons).

I usually spend a lot of time in dungeons and duties and as long as the content is 4 man made I clearly have in mind what's expected from my job (keep aggro, pack enemies, face them wisely, play with OGC rotations to mitigate etc. while doing the most DPS the possible) and is really better than most other tank roles in general MMORPG.

The only thing i dont understand is this: how should i behave in a 8 man party? Who tanks? Who offtanks?

For those 3 activities i've checked on the other tank Stance, if they were in Tank Stance i swapped to DPS (an playing offtank) and the opposite but here what's happened while doing this:

First Time (Garuda): the WAR charged boss in tank stance, i swapped to sword oath, after a while garuda was hitting healer, I checked again and the WAR was in DPS stance with a poor enmity (his bar was yellow while I was targetting boss and almost depleted). So i swapped to tank stance-Provoked Boss-Started MT it 'till the fight ended.

What I dont get here is why this happened.

Second Time went cool in the first 8man dungeon, the DK I met there literaly did all the job while I was barely able to follow the group (probably most were farmers)

Third time (last ARR main scenario dungeon) another WAR MT all the place BUT Ultima Weapon, he didn't even tried that. As soon as i realized he was NOT going to i did that and tanked it (with no problems since they melt it down). As before i fail to see the reason.


While i'm not sure about the first WAR in garuda's fight (he looked greener than me) i'm pretty sure the other two were not noobs and it's rather me that didnt do what was expected of me.

Is there some general rule one follows in this kind of contents? If the same thing that happened with Garuda should happen on a hard trial it won't probably end THAT well :D

Thanks in advance for any advice

the problem nowadays is u can't tell who's mt just looking at the stance - since war mostly tank in dps stance for cleaves even if they take the MT position. since they "balanced" the tanks its mostly War>Drk>Pala for MTs in casual grp content so - until 5.0 u shouldn't maintank that often in 8 grp content. aside of that no matter which tank you get paired with u will often face bad enmity control on mt-side (to greedy for dps) or heal aggro from spammed hots (brain dead healer). so being a pala knowing you are generally the offtank didn't prevent you to keep your eyes open and train reflexes for an emergency provoke/ultimate to save the day if needed - else focus on your dmg rota and shield/def-support. ^^

Playing Pala as Offtank is kinda fun tho... you got massiv CDs and a Skillgauge which make u nearly unbreakable on the fly, u can cheat mechanics and aoes easily - and those who don't want to freak out can optimize dmg mig and support with shield/block-skills.

nvm hope u will enjoy HW and SB like u did with ARR - all the best :3

edit: oh and about ultima weapon in msq dng... it will always aggro a healer until its guard is broken by hydelyn. there are several bosses who comes with auto-enmity or enmity-reset later in the game - u will get used to those as well, tho he actually was aware of it - its not worth to atk the big boy for the first 10+ seconds ;3

Right so tanking in this game, you only ever start the fight in tank stance, after you have established aggro (usually only takes a few gcds) , you switch to dps stance, at level 50 WARs dps stance is just not being in tank stance. So if a WAR pulls then turns off tank stance, they arn't asking someone else to take over. Other than that, just try to communicate as to who is pulling the boss, thats the best way to figure it out instead of bumbling.

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the problem nowadays is u can't tell who's mt just looking at the stance - since war mostly tank in dps stance for cleaves even if they take the MT position. since they "balanced" the tanks its mostly War>Drk>Pala for MTs in casual grp content so - until 5.0 u shouldn't maintank that often in 8 grp content. aside of that no matter which tank you get paired with u will often face bad enmity control on mt-side (to greedy for dps) or heal aggro from spammed hots (brain dead healer). so being a pala knowing you are generally the offtank didn't prevent you to keep your eyes open and train reflexes for an emergency provoke/ultimate to save the day if needed - else focus on your dmg rota ^^

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Thanks a lot, that starts to make some sense.

The healer was not spamming tho (I had no issues at all mantaining aggro and the DPS was close to healer in enmity).

Would you also be so kind to explain me these differences in tanking (WAR-DRK-PAL)? At lvl 50 i dont have access to royal authority/Goring blade combos and that makes my DMG rotation to be almost doin nothing/lil damage;

wouldn't it just better for 2 handers (WAR-DRK) to off-tank since they can't block but can dish out more DPS (for the time being at least i believe)?

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Right so tanking in this game, you only ever start the fight in tank stance, after you have established aggro (usually only takes a few gcds) , you switch to dps stance, at level 50 WARs dps stance is just not being in tank stance. So if a WAR pulls then turns off tank stance, they arn't asking someone else to take over. Other than that, just try to communicate as to who is pulling the boss, thats the best way to figure it out instead of bumbling.

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That's what I usually do when alone (Light parties) depending on content (most times i just stay in sword stance when I'm confident with the content).

I agree with you, if one swap stance he's not asking for me to take over but if he loose the aggro...

actually yeah thats where Palas came from they were meant to be maintanks for a long period cause of their extra-def cooldowns, selfheal and low dmg etc. - But balance patch after balance patch actually made Warrior superior as maintank cause of his high burst dps - and in endgame... sadly everything is built around max dps... - thats why I said all these former def-cd from Paladins maintank era are just over-selfdef material nowadays which make Pala incredible resistent to most of the casual content mechanics.

never the less all tanks share the same roleskills so they got the same base of def cds + every tank offered some unique def skills. Palas Holyground is badass and negates nearly every dmg ingame (except limits and ultimates), while Drk f.e is the only tank with a magic-def cd. they have there niche skills, but overall the base of def cds are the shared role skills.

and don't worry about a lvl 50 dmg rotation, your damage will increase expo if u reach 60 and later 70 toolkit. ^^

As PLD you never pull - DRK and especially WAR have much better snap aggro and lose far less DPS by starting in tank stance. There are exceptions: other tank has much worse gear, can't tank, fell asleep or just refuses to pull. In pre-70 content it doesn't matter that much.
Another important thing is OT/MT misconception: in savage content tanks should swap all the time to fully utilize their cooldowns. There is no main and offtank, unless you just use those names to describe which tanks has aggro at the moment. Again, doesn't matter pre-70. Nobody is going to bother with swapping during normal trials.

So yeah, as PLD you should just be blue icon DPS most of the time :P

One more note: around lvl 50 is really weird for tanks because of their DPS rotation. WAR doesn't have his stance and PLD doesn't have combo. So even if you don't tank you will get a lot of enmity - Shirk helps a little.

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Originally Posted by Terkhev

Again, doesn't matter pre-70.

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I'd argue it doesn't really matter at 70 either in casual content. It's not really a big deal in normal mode raids/trials/alliance raids if the PLD pulling isn't optimal. Only really in EX/Savage when there's a strict enrage timer to beat.

For lvl 50 and below content you will be the main tank as your only combo as a PLD is your aggro combo.

Realistically it doesnt matter for anthing outside of Ex/Savage content. Welcome and I hope you enjoy Heavensward and Stormblood

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Originally Posted by Neela

edit: oh and about ultima weapon in msq dng... it will always aggro a healer until its guard is broken by hydelyn. there are several bosses who comes with auto-enmity or enmity-reset later in the game - u will get used to those as well, tho he actually was aware of it - its not worth to atk the big boy for the first 10+ seconds ;3

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It’s not automatic to a healer. It’s just that you can’t deal much damage at the start, but healers can heal for full.
He has normal aggro tables for the fight. Back before everyone was overpowered in gear it was normal to have people just /sit and wait while he waits on the tank for a moment. One cure generated a lot more enmity than a tank could generate until the shields were down.

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

Right so tanking in this game, you only ever start the fight in tank stance, after you have established aggro (usually only takes a few gcds) , you switch to dps stance, at level 50 WARs dps stance is just not being in tank stance. So if a WAR pulls then turns off tank stance, they arn't asking someone else to take over.

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Well...

You switch to DPS stance if you and healers are both up to it. Which in a lot of casual content is not the case. Especially if somebody in that setup is still leveling.

On this same toon, in the same content, I find one run I can go in DPS stance most of the way, and in the next I can barely stay alive when in tank stance...

Things get a lot more predictable once you hit max level and are in content that has a minimum iLevel... but before that I stick to tank stance until I have an idea of how strong my group is...

If the WAR has dropped to yellow on threat, they've not only asked somebody else to take over, they've already finished handing off the ball. ESPECIALLY if no one else there was in tank stance.

If I'm on PLD or DRK, and the other tank is a WAR, unless they hit tank stance starting out, I'm going to and then I'm going to MT it... That might not be a popular opinion - but the way I see it is that if they don't want to be a tank I won't make them be a tank. Then again I tend to avoid using PLD or DRK just to not have to worry about this...

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Originally Posted by Derio

For lvl 50 and below content you will be the main tank as your only combo as a PLD is your aggro combo.

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That's the point. For what i can see and understand i'll want to use a LOT my later combos further on (goring blade/royal authority) but at LvL 50 dungeons it's Rage of Halone or Riot Blade.

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Originally Posted by Derio

For lvl 50 and below content you will be the main tank as your only combo as a PLD is your aggro combo.

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because War rage in his dps stance and shouldn't take advantage of inner beast and unleash here!!11 oh wait.....

tbh in lvl 50 content the player who pulls first is the main tank - cls doesn't matter at all here : /

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Originally Posted by Noldornir

Thanks a lot, that starts to make some sense.

The healer was not spamming tho (I had no issues at all mantaining aggro and the DPS was close to healer in enmity).

Would you also be so kind to explain me these differences in tanking (WAR-DRK-PAL)? At lvl 50 i dont have access to royal authority/Goring blade combos and that makes my DMG rotation to be almost doin nothing/lil damage;

wouldn't it just better for 2 handers (WAR-DRK) to off-tank since they can't block but can dish out more DPS (for the time being at least i believe)?

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Its because warrior in offensive stance could dish out much higher damage than other two tanks, which equals to more enmity being generated by such tank, and enmity is really important for a tank that is tanking the boss.
While he is tanking it, other tank uses the offensive stance as well and use combination of abilities provoke > shrink to the second tank, using provoke to get ahead with enmity and then pass half of it to the MT with the shrink ability, this way he is increasing his enmity level and everyone is happy because MT doesnt lose boss aggro while dealing as much dps as he could in offensive stance. Also healers and DPS in team has to use their enmity dumping skills to prevent themselves from getting ahead MT in enmity.

That way you could have 2 tanks in offensive stance dealing more dps overall in comparison to the team in which MT is using tank stance.

Why people decided to make it meta game? Because they have to in order to meet the DPS requirements on raids with savage and ultimate level of difficulty, there is a time limit you have to kill the boss there, if you dont kill it within the given time then you will get killed and fail the run thats why it is so important to get as high dps as possible.
Tanks stance at this point doesnt really matter, healers in this game has really OP healing bursts skills and so it is enough if MT will use deffensive cooldown for tank busters and other high damage moves, so he will just survive and get burst healed to full, you can only survive once so it doesnt matter if you will survive with 20% hp or 50%.
Also PLD or DRK isnt played as a MT when there is a warrior in their team, but if there no WAR then i guess it depends on who could dish out more dmg.

As i said, this tactic is being used primary on the high end content, you dont have to follow it in normal raids or anything below, it requires a good team coordination and knowledge about certain raid you are running, even more if two tanks decide to do swapping the boss aggro in order to utilize their best CD's but thats even more complicated than it already is without swapping. Usually, MT in normal raids is using tank stance and the other uses offensive, and its all fine.

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Originally Posted by Noldornir

wouldn't it just better for 2 handers (WAR-DRK) to off-tank since they can't block but can dish out more DPS (for the time being at least i believe)?

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It is not really about the weapon they're holding. It is about the abilities they can use. In terms of DPS, the 3 tanks are roughly around the same DPS. WAR has slightly better burst when not all meta-raid buffs are present, while PLD and DRK can dish out slightly more maximum DPS with optimal raid buffst. Those difference are within the 100 DPS margin, when we're talking 5~6000s DPS, it's barely 2%. Not even worth mentioning tbh. It only matters when you want to optimize for damage.

As a matter of fact, the first 4 patches of Stormblood, PLD did too much DPS (Read: Highest tank DPS) for what it brings to the raid that we took 3 nerfs in 3 patches in a row to put it back in line... that I remember. (WAR got reworked completely and DRK got numerous buffs to catch up as well).

Defensively, for paladin, shield is too unreliable until you learn Sheltron and can build gauge fast enough to use it (Sword Oath). And even then, Sheltron is a block by the shield, blocks 1 hit, you can't parry while you block and finally, shield Block is preceded by Critical damage (the way the game checks for damage is: hit/miss > critical > block > parry > normal). So you may very well use Sheltron (100% chance to block) and still get full damage from a critical hit (some bosses do guaranteed criticals as well). The critical is mitigated with Awareness but that has a cooldown. Outside of Sheltron, your defensive buffs don't last long enough and have very long cool down times for them to amount to great mitigation. So it's not all up-side. Sheltron is still a very dang good move mind you, one of the best, just has the aforementioned drawbacks.

The main reason WAR or DRK pull instead of the PLD is the initial enmity burst vs DPS lost. For PLD to sit in Shield Oath (-15%), throw a Shield Lob (1GCD), do a whole of Rage of Halone combo (3GCDs), then use Sword Oath (1 GCD with 0 actual damage that needs 3~4 GCDs to make up for it) you lose too much DPS and misalign your buffs from raid buffs by that many GCDs for the rest of the phase/fight. Meanwhile WAR hits with Tomahawk (1GCD), uses Equilibrium (off-GCD) and he's already in DPS stance doing its DPS rotation that is optimized with raid buffs. Because of the burst enmity and an opener that does more damage than everyone else except 2 or 3 DPS classes, the rest of the DPS will have a very hard time to catch up to them in enmity. Assuming everyone is using aggro control, WAR sets the enmity for the rest of the fight without ever touching an enmity combo or needs the second tank to do so.

As for the idea of Main Tank / Off Tank, you should forget this concept, it is bad to limit yourself to it. Think Main Tank is simply the tank that is "tanking right now" or "pulling the boss". It is much better to think of the tank pairs as a 1 entity of tanks, so instead of 1 HP bar, you have 2, instead of just having 1 set of defensives, you have 2, and instead of 1 provoke, you have 2, etc.

Most nasty things either stretch your CDs too hard for 1 tank to keep it, or apply debuffs that would kill you outright if you try to keep the boss. Some other cases both tanks need to split damage (Akh Morns), tank same boss simultaneously (T11), or tank 2 different things the whole fight (O6S, O12S M&F). Heck, most of Deltascape and Sigmascape Savage had the "off-tank" take more damage than the "main tank" that's actually tanking the boss.

Oh so that explains why sometimes I could have sworn I had shelltron up and didn't get s shield swipe proc.

Kind of odd that shield oath has no reliable way to build oath gauge until we get holy spirit...I mean in an aoe pull you can hit bulwark sure and get lots of procs but on a boss its usefulness for that is limited.

Thanks for the in-depth explanations Nedkel and Phoenicia!

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As for the idea of Main Tank / Off Tank, you should forget this concept, it is bad to limit yourself to it. Think Main Tank is simply the tank that is "tanking right now" or "pulling the boss". It is much better to think of the tank pairs as a 1 entity of tanks, so instead of 1 HP bar, you have 2, instead of just having 1 set of defensives, you have 2, and instead of 1 provoke, you have 2, etc.

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Even tho i do like this idea and think it's actually the best available route... but is it doable in a duty finder with another random tank?

My problem is (for the time being at last) when i'm with a random tank; I won't know how he plays, what he's about to do, if he's going to shirk on me etc.

Is there any "unwritten rule" which is generally used by good players in a random dungeon?

To be more clear, ler's say I go in a trial (hard). I'll get another random tank. Let's say he's a very good player. How would he behave? What would he expect of me (in terms of role OC).

Should I just beat the boss as hard as i can without caring of how much enmity i generate (and if i get aggroed who cares as long as i'm not standing with/in front of DPSs)?
Should I just focus on generating damage WHILE helping him to keep the aggro? (Like before but i could use shirk in case i get aggro or provoke->shirk before it happens)?
Should I just do something else?

Of course i expect this might change depending on content (in a fight with many adds the OT probably stack em while the MT keep boss at bay, in a super-strong boss the MT could use skills like cover etc. or OC) but as a GENERAL rule how do the two tanks (should) behave when they do not know each other?

There are not much unwritten rules how so ever...

u can make a checklist...

- always enter on dps stance proactiv
- see if War or Drk are going to pull/set timer in tankstance
- Never use enmity just to raise your score it doesnt matter if burst monster like Sam/Blm are higher than u while beeing Off-Tank. But be sure how to use provok/ultimate just in case.
- Sticking to your dps/dot rota should prevent you to run into enmity-battles with the MT
- If u claim enmity by accident slow down and hand the mob over again / with or without shirk

Nothing more to do actually ^^

edit: on higher lvl u also can assist with shieldskills, debuffs or emergency heals - if u like to ;3

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Originally Posted by Noldornir

Even tho i do like this idea and think it's actually the best available route... but is it doable in a duty finder with another random tank?

My problem is (for the time being at last) when i'm with a random tank; I won't know how he plays, what he's about to do, if he's going to shirk on me etc.

Is there any "unwritten rule" which is generally used by good players in a random dungeon?

To be more clear, ler's say I go in a trial (hard). I'll get another random tank. Let's say he's a very good player. How would he behave? What would he expect of me (in terms of role OC).

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If the other tank is MT, then you're just a blue DPS. If you know that there are no tank swaps in the next 2 minutes, you can provoke + shirk (or just shirk if you're getting close to their aggro). The "unwritten rule" in 8-man (non-savage) duties is : first tank with tank stance on pulls. Other than that, just do mechanics and keep DPSing.

Neela and Megguido pretty much summed it up.

Don't entertain the thought of aggro battlers, it's bad for the over-all team DPS, mitigation and healing (not only do healers hate not knowing which tank is actually taking damage, but a tank taking a tank buster move unexpectedly most likely will cause a tank death. Oh how I hate eating a tank buster because my co-tank died or slacked and my aggro caught up to his just before it started casting and I didn't have enough time to react fully... even if I survive it lol).

The most important thing to note is: Anything that people are willing to do in random duty finder is easy enough for it not to matter who does what. In high end content (Savage, latest extreme primal and Ultimate) people will set rules beforehand that you will know exactly what to do and when. Just enjoy all features of tanking until then. :)

i feel you on this. especially in the 24 man raids in Sb. i dont feel like there is much reason for more then one tank in any boss fight. Im just sitting there in DPS stance 90% of the time, but its not like that any major DPS. I dont feel like im really contributing to the fight.

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Originally Posted by jadan2000

i feel you on this. especially in the 24 man raids in Sb. i dont feel like there is much reason for more then one tank in any boss fight. Im just sitting there in DPS stance 90% of the time, but its not like that any major DPS. I dont feel like im really contributing to the fight.

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I tink it's mostly when multiple adds spawn that more than one tank has something to do in alliance raids.

Though given how unorganized a lot of AR groups are, on top of things like shirk etc not usable outside your individual party, it's probably for the best that most of the time you don't NEED more than one tank to be ont he ball at a time.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

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I hate how things like Shirk and other single target tank utility abilities like casting TBN on the MT don't work in Alliance Raids. I feel it really hampers the fun of what you can do as an OT, particularly for PLD and DRK.