Should one tank in tank stance?

[JustinHiryu]

Sera, Pyur, and Delily, thank you for your insights. The information, I feel, is coming quite nicely.

[Canadane]

I'll just add to this that enmity controls have moderately long cooldowns. Unless the party is willing to stop and wait between pulls, they might not always be available. I tend to not use enmity reduction on mobs outside of the first pull because I'd rather not rip the boss off the tank. Everyone has to watch aggro, but I think the tank bears a little more responsibility outside of boss fights.

Between pulls? If it's just dungeon mobs, the tanks likely going to stay in tank stance anyway. If it's a boss, skills are reset on death. If you're farming wins on a primal or savage or something, the tank shouldn't require much assistance for enmity by the end, so usually timers aren't a consideration there either.

[PyurBlue]

The tank should have no issues holding enmity in a boss fight. So long as they start in tank stance and use a few enmity combos, with the odd top up, there should be no trouble whatsoever. There's nothing wrong with a tank doing this in most dungeons, their damage isn't a crucial factor like endgame raids.

Pulling mob packs however is quick, and depending on enemy placement you don't always have enough time to use all your enmity skills before they disperse and then you're playing a game of cat and mouse chasing them around. That's when you want your DPS to use their enmity cooldowns.

I suppose that's one way of looking at it, although if you do end up having to use Diversion, etc, on a pack of mobs it might not be off cooldown for the next pack. Positioning and dispersing mobs shouldn't be an issue if the DPS wait for the tank to establish aggro on everything.

Between pulls? If it's just dungeon mobs, the tanks likely going to stay in tank stance anyway. If it's a boss, skills are reset on death. If you're farming wins on a primal or savage or something, the tank shouldn't require much assistance for enmity by the end, so usually timers aren't a consideration there either.

I was referring to dungeon mobs yeah. Ideally tank stance should be enough but I have found myself in situations where I had to use enmity reductions to keep mobs on the tank. Gear will play a part in this, so it might not be the tank's "fault", but if the DPS are consistently able to gain on the tank on the enmity list then cooldowns won't comeback fast enough to be used for every dungeon pull.

[Canadane]

I was referring to dungeon mobs yeah. Ideally tank stance should be enough but I have found myself in situations where I had to use enmity reductions to keep mobs on the tank. Gear will play a part in this, so it might not be the tank's "fault", but if the DPS are consistently able to gain on the tank on the enmity list then cooldowns won't comeback fast enough to be used for every dungeon pull.

Yes it'll generally be gear that plays the biggest part in it, which is why my post started with that.

For dungeons, once sufficiently geared,

You can hand wave away anything when people are still learning. It's once you're at level cap, once you're at ilvl cap, you gotta maintain some expectations.

[JustinHiryu]

I gave 24 hours of consideration to everyone's input on tank issue. Now, I have made it known that throughout my career as a tank, I kept tank stance on, and I have had no issues in keeping it on be it with myself or other main tanks. Being that, everyone's views here have been insightful, and given such I have things to add:

Using tank stance for mob pulls everyone can agree with here. Although, I have from other sources, heard people say that you should not tank stance, at all. I do not agree with "not using tank stance no matter the circumstance." There are times where tank stance is needed.


In party play, be it with a premade party or one made by the roulettes, I do not expect my team members to cater to my own playstyle more than I expect them to do as their role intends. Healers to keep the party alive, damage dealers to dps, and myself as a tank to keep the mobs away from the healer and dps. If the tank dies, 70% chance that the entire party dies. If the healer dies, 90% chance that the entire team dies. My needs are simple in party play. Do your job and that is enough. With that said, I do not expect the damage dealers in the group to use anti-enmity cooldowns just so I can trade hate for damage. A premade party, perhaps I can ask this, but premade or no, if I requested it, and they told me to go to hell, I would not fault them. Like I said, my needs are simple, and they are easily and universally understood.



Now, this does not mean that I will not drop tank stance when it is needed. If there is an encounter that requires extra damage to be dealt, I have dropped tank stance to fill in that role. I do that on any content that requires a "dps race", and back when Warrior was one of the top damage tanks, I shelled out Fell Cleaves on bosses. Alas, Warrior is not what it used to be. So, I understand the practice of increased dps as a tank on bosses, and by what I understand, everyone here agrees with dropping tank stance on bosses after first establishing aggro. This, I could do more, so long as hate is not lost from me too many times, at which I will just remain in tank stance and be fine for it.



On the issue of damage reduction vs. dealing damage, as a tank, I err on the side of staying alive rather than trying to out damage that dragoon or monk. Logically speaking, your damage is for naught if you die before you have slain your enemies. Granted, I know that staying alive is not just on the tank, but on the healer. But, why not give myself and possibly my team every advantage that I can? Damage reduction is just, in my opinion, the better and more useful choice. YES, I KNOW SOME OF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THIS AND YOU HAVE MADE YOUR REASON WHY VERY CLEAR!! I wanted to put that in all capital letters so you all can understand that I understand. I also pop defensive cooldowns that can be used.

You all have advice that I will use, so your time and your words have not fallen upon death ears.

[JustinHiryu]

Seriously, thank you all for your time here.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Between pulls? If it's just dungeon mobs, the tanks likely going to stay in tank stance anyway. If it's a boss, skills are reset on death. If you're farming wins on a primal or savage or something, the tank shouldn't require much assistance for enmity by the end, so usually timers aren't a consideration there either.

Not necessarily. Provided the gear discrepancy between the tank and DPS isn't too high, you don't even need tank stance anymore. I have done both The Burn and Saint Mochi Hard without touching Grit the entire run. The damage dealt is negligible even if you pull the entire room. Even in the event you do need snap aggro, you can pull with tank stance and drop it immediately after. And no, the healers still have ample opportunity to DPS.

Now I wouldn't recommend this more aggressive approach unless you're confident in your tanking. But it's perfectly visible, and altogether not exactly difficult to do mass pulls without tank stance in Expert dungeons. They're a complete joke for the most part.

[Hierro]

Using tank stance for mob pulls everyone can agree with here. Although, I have from other sources, heard people say that you should not tank stance, at all. I do not agree with "not using tank stance no matter the circumstance." There are times where tank stance is needed.


In party play, be it with a premade party or one made by the roulettes, I do not expect my team members to cater to my own playstyle more than I expect them to do as their role intends. Healers to keep the party alive, damage dealers to dps, and myself as a tank to keep the mobs away from the healer and dps. If the tank dies, 70% chance that the entire party dies. If the healer dies, 90% chance that the entire team dies. My needs are simple in party play. Do your job and that is enough. With that said, I do not expect the damage dealers in the group to use anti-enmity cooldowns just so I can trade hate for damage. A premade party, perhaps I can ask this, but premade or no, if I requested it, and they told me to go to hell, I would not fault them. Like I said, my needs are simple, and they are easily and universally understood.

I feel there's the error being made here of a false "either-or" situation. When it comes to tank stance, sometimes the mitigation isn't needed EVEN in large trash mob pulls. If you use Shadow Wall and grit on, you're actually receiving 44% in terms of mitigation. that extra 14% from using grit is pretty minor, so it's worth turning off in order to capitalize on the situation and pump out serious damage.

I want to make the point that when you are playing well and with skill, you can have excellent personal dps and drop tank stance AND still not put a strain on your healer or the rest of the party. You won't even need to ask the DPS to cater to you because achieving high DPS naturally means achieving high levels of threat. Your excellence does not have to be at anyone's expense.

And again, there does not have to be a choice between damage or mitigation. A boss's regular damage is handled easily by regens, and cooldowns can handle tank busters fine. Cooldowns, and TBN especially, handle the rest just fine. In the worst case scenario of taking a tank buster without ANY cooldown, you are still going to be fine because nothing significant ever happens after a dungeon boss's "tank buster."

[galbsadi]

Threat-wise, you can get away without tank stance even in current dungeons on large trash pulls (I've done this on accident a time or two, rushing through dungeons with no stance whatsoever even).

That said, the flip-side there is you probably want tank stance in those cases so your healer doesn't wish death upon you (remember it reduces damage taken as well).

Unless I'm feeling particularly lazy, I'll typically swap to my DPS stance on bosses when I have aggro control, but will typically do tank stance on trash (and I typically pull large on trash).

[Nolagamer]

I just feel that if tanking in dps stance is preferable over to tank stance then there’s something fundamentally wrong with the gameplay in that department.