Off Tank Stance?

[Makeda]

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

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.