Radical thought...remove the off-tank?

[Xerek]

With all the talk of tanks and DPS and all, I had a random thought. Do we really need an off-tank? Yes, some battles require tank-swaps, and a small number of times you need to tank two things apart (Bismark), but in truth 99% of the time an OT is just locked in DPS stance, DPSing. Now, there are a shortage of tanks, and we all know how bad DPS queues are. So I was wondering, what if SE designed future 8-man content to instead require one tank, two healers and five DPS? Not only would this help even out queue times, it would avoid sticking a tank in the role of second-hand DPS. Yes, you would lose tank swaps and mechanics like Twin Bolt, but would that really be so great a loss?

Like I said, just a random thought that came to me.

[Aylis]

I'd be for it if not just for the sake of stopping one thing I've run into from time to time

Tank 1: I'm the tank.
Tank 2: NO I'm the tank!
Tank 1: NO!!! ME!!!
Tank 2: ME!!!

*fight starts after 10 minutes of tanks arguing*
*tanks proceed to try and out tank each other, mess up positions, dps and healer rotations and wipe the group*

Tanks 1 and 2: HEALERS FAULT!!!

[Airget]

Nope. The whole reason the 2 tank and 2 healer party comp exist is because if one falls you always have a backup. It allows the party to recover. Think about how much more frustrating content would be if because the tank died you had to wipe and start over because you have no one to pickup the slack from their death.

[Xerek]

Nope. The whole reason the 2 tank and 2 healer party comp exist is because if one falls you always have a backup. It allows the party to recover. Think about how much more frustrating content would be if because the tank died you had to wipe and start over because you have no one to pickup the slack from their death.

That's why you have healers who can rez and burst heal. MT outright dying should bring a panicked flurry of activity to recover, much as it does in current 4-man content.

[kikix12]

That's why you have healers who can rez and burst heal. MT outright dying should bring a panicked flurry of activity to recover, much as it does in current 4-man content.

Except, resurrecting the tank brings him up weaker than he was before. Not to mention, the boss can cause massive havoc (up to a wipe) in the couple seconds it will take to recover. If there is a second tank, then he can just get the enmity lead instantly and avoid all that, while the previous tanks waits his penalty out.

[Vidu]

Dont you want to do most 8-man-content with a premade group anyways? So if you feel confident enough, you can go in with only one tank.

I realize that NM of raids and primals are exceptions here, but for the first I'd really prefer a back-up tank (aswell as the fights sometimes having mechanics that require tank-swaps after all) and the later are normally run once and then never again (and, again: tank-swaps, back up tanks)

And as cheap as a mechanic a tank-swap might seem... as a tank myself, I like it - it keeps me on my toes a bit, gives me something to watch out for and to coordinate about. As MT many fights are "stand still in this spot and get your ass wiped" already - tank-swaps or switching to dps-mode are a nice change from that.

[Selova]

snip.

It doesn't matter how much you heal for if you have the raid boss going around 1 shotting all the dps and healers. By having 2 tanks, it makes it easier to recover from mistakes when you're working on prog. I cannot even fathom how annoying having only 1 tank would be on the unending coil fight, seeing how it's a 18+ minute fight. I'm sure being the only tank and then messing up and dying past the 15 minute mark with no way to recover to get in practice attempts would be absolutely wonderful....Yeah I think I've made my point.

[Skivvy]

Except, resurrecting the tank brings him up weaker than he was before. Not to mention, the boss can cause massive havoc (up to a wipe) in the couple seconds it will take to recover. If there is a second tank, then he can just get the enmity lead instantly and avoid all that, while the previous tanks waits his penalty out.

Weakness only lowers sTR, DEX, INT, and MND by 25%.Strength now - MP and HP are no longer affected.

[Nezerius]

Weakness only lowers sTR, DEX, INT, and MND by 25%.Strength now - MP and HP are no longer affected.

Which doesn't really disprove his point. 25% lower STR still makes the tank weaker, due to the fact that they'd be doing less damage.

Whether it's a big deal or not being beside the point. I personally don't think it is, since the offtank can just shirk and help the main tank getting an enmity lead.

[Gravton]

It's not that radical. People have been asking for this since 2.0. Sadly they went the other way by creating tank swaps in almost every fight. It was the laziest thing they could have done so they did it.