Off Tank Stance?

[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?

[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.

[Lucy_Pyre]

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.

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.

[DRKoftheAzure]

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"...

[Canadane]

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.

[Lambdafish]

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.

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

[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.

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.

[testname]

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

[testname]

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

[SleepyNeko]

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.