Quote Originally Posted by Nalou View Post
Excuse-me, but I don't understand that "off-tank" concept.
I'm not lv 50 yet, but I've been tanking for years on FFXI, and we never NEVER had a main tank and an off tank.
We always had a couple of equal tanks bouncing hate, which means tanks working together to take hits alternatively, and also means tanks saving each other by pulling hate from their co-tanker at critical moments.
It also means the healer's job is easier, because two tanks double your tanking Hp pool while splitting the damage taken.
It's also safer for the whole raid/alliance, because, in case one tank dies, you can still survive with the other.
Dual-tanking raises the overall survivability, which also allows more room for offensive actions, instead of being defensive all the time, which leads to faster kills.

So, what's the point of having main tank/off tanks alternate while you could be dual-tanking offensive style ?
What? I don't even know where to start on this one. There needs to be a horrible idea fairy that visits the forums at night and sets posts like this on fire and then lobotomizes the brain it sprang from.

There is a reason that consistently throughout MMO history that relied on the healer/tank dynamic that the most dangerous time in an encounter is during the tank swap, so much so that it's often safer to eat the mechanical penalty for not swapping tanks and bring an extra dps/healer than to perform the swap. Tank swapping requires quick coordination between the healers and tanks, or requires excess healing to cover for lack of coordination that could have been invested in dps.

Also, hate it for Warriors. From my perspective, as a PLD, it's not really the small but significant static difference in effective tanking. It's the massive amount of proactive defensive cooldowns that PLDs get.