Off Tank Stance?

Basic (and most likely dumb) question IMO. As an off tank am I supposed to have my tank stance on for the whole fight? I really only run normal content. And rarely extreme fights. I don't know how stuff is handled in savage fights. If that matters.

I was running E6 for the first time as WAR. Had a GNB co-tank. They seemed pretty intent on MT since they rushed in head first with their tank stance on (Along with their comments about all the deaths that were about to happen being sacrifices or some crap like that). So I took the off tank position. We had a lot of deaths including the GNB. So I switched on my tank stance and provoked to grab the boss. Rest is irrelevant. We wiped.

Before the second try they asked me to leave my tank stance on. I didn't think it was a good idea but I did it anyway because I wasn't in the mood for an argument and it didn't look like they were going to pull until I put Defiance on. As expected aggro kept bouncing between the two of us. So stuff like tankbusters targeted me when myself and maybe the healers didn't expect it. We wiped again.

Before the third try I said Id just keep Defiance off until the GNB died because aggro was bouncing all over the place. So I did. We actually cleared this time and unsurprisingly I got the snarky remark "btw shirk is a thing tanks can use". Problem is I WAS using shirk! As of right now at least, its not really something that can be spammed. Our interaction pretty much ended with me saying "It was on cooldown".

So please tell me. Am I right or wrong for leaving tank stance off when I'm not MTing and there are no adds to be picked up?

Generally if both tanks start a fight with their tank stance on, agro is going to go to whomever does the most damage in short window after pulling, and thats not even a gear thing, just a class thing. For example, DRK has the highest initial burst in the game followed by GNB and WAR etc etc.

Generally? If you're OT, just turn your tank stance on like 3-5 GCD's in to the fight, by that point the MT will have enough of a lead it shouldn't be a problem, and it'll mean you'll always be #2 on agro if something goes wrong or if a mechanic calls for it. Some fights call for specific agro management but you seem to have a decent enough grasp of it to be able to adapt if needed, but its a good general rule to follow anyway.

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Originally Posted by VenKitsune

Generally if both tanks start a fight with their tank stance on, agro is going to go to whomever does the most damage in short window after pulling, and thats not even a gear thing, just a class thing. For example, DRK has the highest initial burst in the game followed by GNB and WAR etc etc.

Generally? If you're OT, just turn your tank stance on like 3-5 GCD's in to the fight, by that point the MT will have enough of a lead it shouldn't be a problem, and it'll mean you'll always be #2 on agro if something goes wrong or if a mechanic calls for it. Some fights call for specific agro management but you seem to have a decent enough grasp of it to be able to adapt if needed, but its a good general rule to follow anyway.

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First of all, there's a lot wrong in this statement. WAR actually has the highest opening burst of all the tanks, not DRK. The two are relatively close but WAR does surpass it. Other than that, no, you don't turn your stance on that early as OT. The only time your stance should be on that soon as OT is if the boss auto attacks the #1 and #2 targets on aggro such as Leviathan savage. Otherwise, however, the OT should start the fight with their stance turned off and only turn it on around 30-45 seconds into the fight, which is enough time that both tanks will be completely finished with their opening burst phases and that by turning your stance on immediately after that point you will give the MT a large enough aggro lead that it is more or less impossible to rip aggro off of them.

If you want a better understanding of "off tanking" it's called Provoke+Shirk.

But because tanks do not specialize in either main tanking or off tanking, good luck trying to convince people that tanking is "balanced and fun"...

If I’m OTing and they want Defiance on, I’ll end up MT regardless of how good they are, shirk or otherwise.
Don’t listen to bad tanks.

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Originally Posted by Lucy_Pyre

First of all, there's a lot wrong in this statement. WAR actually has the highest opening burst of all the tanks, not DRK. The two are relatively close but WAR does surpass it. Other than that, no, you don't turn your stance on that early as OT. The only time your stance should be on that soon as OT is if the boss auto attacks the #1 and #2 targets on aggro such as Leviathan savage. Otherwise, however, the OT should start the fight with their stance turned off and only turn it on around 30-45 seconds into the fight, which is enough time that both tanks will be completely finished with their opening burst phases and that by turning your stance on immediately after that point you will give the MT a large enough aggro lead that it is more or less impossible to rip aggro off of them.

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Actually Ven is right and you are wrong. 3-5 GCDs after the pull is the perfect time to turn on tank stance. From there you will be second on the hate list for the rest of the fight unless something goes drastically wrong, at which point provoke and shirk are quick stabilisers

As WAR, if I am off-tank I turn Defiance on right after my Inner Release window runs out. I've never had any issues with that.

There are some situations you will want to be careful though, such as when Shirk is down and they use Provoke. You'll actually want to turn tank stance off to make sure you don't risk taking back the target. This is especially true if the other tank died recently and has weakness.

If MT is trash You need to keep it off till he die - provoke - MT on -

or

You could - start with him, as in MT then shirk on him after your opener , turn off Tank Stance - and leave him die - when he die you still have more agro than people in party - then stance on

or just let him MT , you fight with no stance , at proper time in fight just provoke , don't shirk , you don't have tank stance he will get the agro back , and you have yellow almost full bar of agro , if he die boss is yours

If you are playing normal mode that means the quality of your co-tank will vary alot. Sometimes if you put your tank stance on even after 2 minutes you'll still catch back up due to the co-tank being bad. I personally stick to a provoke without stance on. The provoke will put you to top aggro for a second and the next gcd from the MT will take it back from you. Make sure you don't do this right before a MT targeting mechanic or only do it during a boss cast.

Edit: You only need to be second in enmity and not 90% of the MT's enmity so a provoke after like the initial 30 seconds should keep you as second in aggro for the rest of the fight. Ofcourse you can do it again whenever since the cd is so short.

I typically just leave tank stance on all the time.

If the other tank is crummy on aggro... Well, Shirk exists for a reason. If it's really bad, then I'll toggle it off for a bit (Usually one of my burst combos is enough to create a large enough gap to not worry)

However, there's little recourse in either scenario. Leaving it on or off.

So long as you're 2nd on aggro then it doesn't matter at all. Especially since the enmity changes basically means that DPS/Healers pretty much don't have any enmity compared to like 1 burst combo with tank stance on...

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Actually Ven is right and you are wrong. 3-5 GCDs after the pull is the perfect time to turn on tank stance. From there you will be second on the hate list for the rest of the fight unless something goes drastically wrong, at which point provoke and shirk are quick stabilisers

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If I'm OTing and I turn Defiance on in GCD 3-5 there is about a 90+% chance I'm ripping aggro off of the other tank. So no, they are in fact, not right. Unless there is a mechanic happening early in the fight that requires both tanks to be first and second on aggro there is no reason to turn your stance on until after both tanks have finished their burst windows. Otherwise you risk ripping aggro, especially if one of the tanks is doing significantly more damage than the other.

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Originally Posted by BluexBird

As WAR, if I am off-tank I turn Defiance on right after my Inner Release window runs out. I've never had any issues with that.

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Same here. I'll leave stance off until I've unloaded Inner Release, then turn it on for the fight.

If my co-tank is really struggling, such as a low geared PuG tank with low dps, there's Shirk and you can turn stance off for your other IR windows.

Not that I am really qualified to weigh in on tank damage or anything, but to generalize things this is how I see it. To start, everyone has their own thing they do when they open up a fight, so it's best to simplify things to place everyone on as much equal footing as possible. The simplest way is to count 6 GCDs, enough to encompass each tanks combos. This does not take into account any usage of oGCD skills, since where and when someone might use them is debatable. It does however take into account things like DoTs or natural stat boost these skills produce.

With all that accounted for here here are the "burst" numbers.

GNB comes in first with a total 2550, from their first and cartridge combos. The continuation aspect of the combo was not counted as that is an oGCD move.

PLD comes in second with 2110, using their two combo enders, as well as at least 2 ticks from the Goring Blade DoT, provided it's used prior to Royal Authority. Even if the the DoT ticks aren't accounted for their total would still be 1940.

WAR is third with 1848, this number provided Storm's Eye is used prior to Storm's Path, to gain the added 10% on the next 3 GCD skills. If this is reversed their total is the lowest at 1760.

DRK is last or third at an even 1800, a "downside" of them only having "one" combo. Sadly they can't benefit from their 10% bonus since its tied to oGCD moves.

Once 6 GCD have passed turning on your tank stance should be acceptable, as enough time and enmity have passed to prevent aggro stealing. If you dont feel comfortable doing that, simply just wait a bit longer.

Turn on tank stance after you give the MT a good lead, maybe a good down time when you can swap to it without it a detriment to your job. If you are over taking hate at that point... they are just a crap player.

Turn off your tank stance for 2 or 3 GCD if i dont want MT, then turn on incase something happen and MT die, shirk if you feel that you about to take over MT

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Actually Ven is right and you are wrong. 3-5 GCDs after the pull is the perfect time to turn on tank stance.

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It depends on the tank. As a WAR, I find that the "OT with tank stance on" usually bounces back and forth for the first 3 GCDs due to needing to set up Eye before my burst (which isn't a BIG deal but annoys melee). I can't say I'm familiar with the current openers of the other tanks since I only tank on WAR, but they all have oGCDs and get into their opener fairly quick compared to WAR afaik. Alternatively, I wouldn't want to turn on Defiance right before I light it up with IR/IC spam, that's about guaranteed to pull off the MT. So I usually wait until IR is over with before turning it back on, then I'll try to turn it on about 10 seconds before any swap in case the MT is late with shirk. Lucy's advice of waiting 30-45 seconds is solid compared to waiting 3-5 GCDs.

The other stuff about burst openers is irrelevant other than having a better idea of which tanks might need to delay turning on their stance (within the context of the OP's question).

So yea, wait for burst openers to be done before turning it on. If you need to specifically be 2nd in aggro for the fight because mechanics (E3S, for example), what I would do is Provoke after 3 GCDs (no stance), as going in to burst without stance will keep you 2nd long enough for that to be over, then you can turn on your stance at some point later once the MT has a sufficient lead. On the flip side, if you're MT and about to swap, I've been trying to turn off stance before the swap so that it's a clean swap. I few times I left it on and ended up going into a burst phase and pulling the boss back, so I just try to work it in a little early in case something comes up, or maybe the other tank forgets to put their stance on, etc.

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Originally Posted by Lucy_Pyre

First of all, there's a lot wrong in this statement. WAR actually has the highest opening burst of all the tanks, not DRK. The two are relatively close but WAR does surpass it. Other than that, no, you don't turn your stance on that early as OT. The only time your stance should be on that soon as OT is if the boss auto attacks the #1 and #2 targets on aggro such as Leviathan savage. Otherwise, however, the OT should start the fight with their stance turned off and only turn it on around 30-45 seconds into the fight, which is enough time that both tanks will be completely finished with their opening burst phases and that by turning your stance on immediately after that point you will give the MT a large enough aggro lead that it is more or less impossible to rip aggro off of them.

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i mean...yes and no? Provided both tanks are of similar gear and skill, turning on your stance 3-5 GCDs in wont matter because you'll BOTH be doing your burst at the same time, and they were the ones that pulled with the ranged ability, that just so happens to have an agro multiplier on it.

As an OT it is best to turn it on only after the MT has established aggro, and even then it is usually best to leave it off for the most part. One thing I tend to do though is turn it back on every now and then, do a few rotations and then turn it back off to help keep myself as the boss' next target should the MT die. What annoys me is the tanks that enter, put on their stance and stand there expecting the other to do something. From my perspective, if you've got the stance on and are not removing it before the pull then I'm going to assume that you want to MT. If nothing happens after a short time has passed I will take matters into my own hands, but it is one of those little annoyances for me I guess.

Normally i leave it off till a little after opener/burst since WAR/DRK/GNB can easily
Juggle aggro
Aurora can be a Aggro sucker too if for some reason you pop it on yourself with stance

I'm tempted to say "you're talking in the context of casual content, so it doesn't matter."

However, I'll put in my two cents: Always be prepared to MT. Yes, that does mean I am telling you to keep your stance on at all times, but be prepared to MT for whatever reason. Do not let yourself think you'll be off-tank. In the realm of casual content, if someone else is MTing, they're very likely to die at any time, so it's a good idea to be 2nd in aggro. Though, be prepared because you may also rip aggro and become MT by default.

If you take aggro, you're doing more damage. To save everyone the trouble, simply put if you're dealing more damage you deserve to be taking the wheel anyways.

In 8 man stuff provoke/shirk works. In alliance raids where you can't provoke, you can just toggle it a bit early into the fight and then eventually leave it on when the main tank has a healthy lead, so that when the MT goes down it'll go to a tank and not a dps next.

Just keep it off when off tank. Voke and turn on when/if needed.

Keeping it on / turning it on early can cause issues. If you outgear the MT or the MT has problems, you're just going to need to turn it off anyway. If you need to turn it off and you're not paying attn, it could be pretty terrible depending on the fight. Since you've got to pay attn anyway, I'd recommend paying attn for when you need to voke instead of when you need to disable tank stance.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Actually Ven is right and you are wrong. 3-5 GCDs after the pull is the perfect time to turn on tank stance. From there you will be second on the hate list for the rest of the fight unless something goes drastically wrong, at which point provoke and shirk are quick stabilisers

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Or if you just flat out do more damage as OT.
But then that's what Shirk is for unless mechanics demand it elsewhere.

You should have your tank stance on. Turning your stank stance off and leaving it off is lazy/bad tanking. All you have to do is start with your tank stance off, then turn it on after a couple of hits, somewhere between 3-6 works great. This gets the main tank a decent lead. Then after your opener shirk the main tank. This should give them a significant lead. If you pass them after all that, you significantly outgear them or they are terrible. In that case you should just be main tanking.

There are fights in this game that have mechanics that specifically target the off tank. The off tank is defined as whoever has the 2nd most agro. If you leave your tank stance off this will be a DPS and they will die.

On top of this, if the main tank dies and you don't have tank stance up, the boss will start going for a DPS. If you are unlucky and the main tank failed a mechanic, they may immediately go into a tank buster before you can provoke and get your tank stance up. So now you have two dead players.

If I'm off tanking, which I don't do often, I pop on stance after 1st rotation is done, if I steal hate at this point which often happens out side of savage. I just run with it and assume the other tank clues in. But every now and again I see 3 or 4 vokes in different 24 man raids

To be fair, we now know what happens when enmity combos are removed and people either don't know how to use use shirk, don't want to use Shirk, or hate how much of a hassle it is just to target your co-tank for enmity dump; threads like this are created...

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Actually Ven is right and you are wrong. 3-5 GCDs after the pull is the perfect time to turn on tank stance. From there you will be second on the hate list for the rest of the fight unless something goes drastically wrong, at which point provoke and shirk are quick stabilisers

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This seriously depends on the abilities of the two tanks.

I'm in a situation right now where I volunteered to be OT because I'm new to savage raiding in this MMO and presumed I was being paired with a vet tank (turned out my co-tank is new to being level 80). This has resulted in me being 20-iLevels above the MT.

I can turn on tank stance 3-5 minutes into a pull, and rip threat within a few cooldowns, if I'm not careful. Even when I shirk, as soon as it wears off the enmity icon for the boss flips to the red triangle, and I know I have maybe 1-3 GCDs before it's a sqaure.

That said... I've also been in roulette PUGs where I've had someone insist on being maintank, I wait through my initial rotation, turn on tank-stance, and rip threat... and then had that tank 'suicide' and healers refuse to heal me because "OT should never be in tank stance" leading to wipes...
- That happened last week at least, when I was on DRk and paired against a WAR.

I think the best answer to all of this is: just do what it takes to not overcome them on threat, and hope they have what it takes to keep threat without you having to do too much to avoid pulling it... but you then also need to be sure you're high enough up there on threat that you will get it if the other tank goes down, there is some swap move, or adds pop up (as in... at least make sure you turn it on before the adds go active so you can grab them right away).

It's all situational... a simple "always do exactly this" answer is not going to work if you want things to go smooth and drama free.

To properly answer this question because the first page was full of idiocy and memes:

If you are pulling, have stance on, if not, don't unless the situation requires that both tanks have aggro, as the 1 and 2 aggro slot may be selected for mechanics at times.

If you do not immediately need tank stance on: put it on AFTER the opener.

Contrary to the Epeen crowd, WAR is not the godmode tank and you need AT LEAST until the 4th GCD, your first inner chaos, to have aggro. DRK's burst is too strong, they have a 500 potency spam fest going on with more potency added in with weaving.

PLD has a very weak few GCDs before they start their FoF window or Req window, so they too, need at least until the 4th GCD to be fine before you stance on. GNB is fine, as by the 3rd gcd you should be in your Gnashing Fang (two gcds with BFest weaved after lightning shot and NM after your first or second GCD).

Alternatively, if you NEED both tanks in aggro to take double autos like in Levi Savage, both have stance on, then the one that is the off tank will voke-shirk the other guy, problem solved.

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Originally Posted by Eloah

Not that I am really qualified to weigh in on tank damage or anything, but to generalize things this is how I see it. To start, everyone has their own thing they do when they open up a fight, so it's best to simplify things to place everyone on as much equal footing as possible. The simplest way is to count 6 GCDs, enough to encompass each tanks combos. This does not take into account any usage of oGCD skills, since where and when someone might use them is debatable. It does however take into account things like DoTs or natural stat boost these skills produce.

With all that accounted for here here are the "burst" numbers.

GNB comes in first with a total 2550, from their first and cartridge combos. The continuation aspect of the combo was not counted as that is an oGCD move.

PLD comes in second with 2110, using their two combo enders, as well as at least 2 ticks from the Goring Blade DoT, provided it's used prior to Royal Authority. Even if the the DoT ticks aren't accounted for their total would still be 1940.

WAR is third with 1848, this number provided Storm's Eye is used prior to Storm's Path, to gain the added 10% on the next 3 GCD skills. If this is reversed their total is the lowest at 1760.

DRK is last or third at an even 1800, a "downside" of them only having "one" combo. Sadly they can't benefit from their 10% bonus since its tied to oGCD moves.

Once 6 GCD have passed turning on your tank stance should be acceptable, as enough time and enmity have passed to prevent aggro stealing. If you dont feel comfortable doing that, simply just wait a bit longer.

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This is completely the wrong way of doing it. Always factor in the oGCDs, they are bonkers. Tanks to an outrageous amount of potency when you account for the ogcd abilities.

DRK alone has 5x500 potency with JUST edge of shadow alone, Carve is another 450, abyssal, 200, 2x200 for plunge, Shadow is about 2800 potency on its own, Delirium, and ogcd, enables 5 bloodspillers for free, that's 5x600 potency there.

WAR's two Inner Chaos, unlocked through..you guessed it....an ogcd, is 1800 potency ALONE for TWO gcds that are direct crits. Inner release? Another ogcd that enables 5 DHc cleaves at 590 potency each.

PLD: Req buffs HS and enables the use of Confiteor, 4x525 potency and then the 1200 potency finisher, so yeah... you have to factor all of this in.

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Originally Posted by Kanitezz

Basic (and most likely dumb) question IMO. As an off tank am I supposed to have my tank stance on for the whole fight? I really only run normal content. And rarely extreme fights. I don't know how stuff is handled in savage fights. If that matters.

I was running E6 for the first time as WAR. Had a GNB co-tank. They seemed pretty intent on MT since they rushed in head first with their tank stance on (Along with their comments about all the deaths that were about to happen being sacrifices or some crap like that). So I took the off tank position. We had a lot of deaths including the GNB. So I switched on my tank stance and provoked to grab the boss. Rest is irrelevant. We wiped.

Before the second try they asked me to leave my tank stance on. I didn't think it was a good idea but I did it anyway because I wasn't in the mood for an argument and it didn't look like they were going to pull until I put Defiance on. As expected aggro kept bouncing between the two of us. So stuff like tankbusters targeted me when myself and maybe the healers didn't expect it. We wiped again.

Before the third try I said Id just keep Defiance off until the GNB died because aggro was bouncing all over the place. So I did. We actually cleared this time and unsurprisingly I got the snarky remark "btw shirk is a thing tanks can use". Problem is I WAS using shirk! As of right now at least, its not really something that can be spammed. Our interaction pretty much ended with me saying "It was on cooldown".

So please tell me. Am I right or wrong for leaving tank stance off when I'm not MTing and there are no adds to be picked up?

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If you’re going to have your TS on during your time as the OT it’s a good rule of thumb to keep it off during the initial pull and then to turn it on shortly after the MT has had a few seconds to wail on the boss. Personally I tend to keep mine off if I’m the OT and only turn it on if I need to grab spawning adds or if the MT dies, but that’s just personal preference.

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Originally Posted by EpicOverlord85

If you’re going to have your TS on during your time as the OT it’s a good rule of thumb to keep it off during the initial pull and then to turn it on shortly after the MT has had a few seconds to wail on the boss. Personally I tend to keep mine off if I’m the OT and only turn it on if I need to grab spawning adds or if the MT dies, but that’s just personal preference.

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Oh and there’s always the provoke+shirk combo to keep in mind as well!