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"...

[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

[Lucy_Pyre]

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

If I'm OTing and I turn Defiance on in GCD 3-5 there is about a 90+% chance I'm ripping aggro off of the other tank. So no, they are in fact, not right. Unless there is a mechanic happening early in the fight that requires both tanks to be first and second on aggro there is no reason to turn your stance on until after both tanks have finished their burst windows. Otherwise you risk ripping aggro, especially if one of the tanks is doing significantly more damage than the other.

[whiskeybravo]

Actually Ven is right and you are wrong. 3-5 GCDs after the pull is the perfect time to turn on tank stance.

It depends on the tank. As a WAR, I find that the "OT with tank stance on" usually bounces back and forth for the first 3 GCDs due to needing to set up Eye before my burst (which isn't a BIG deal but annoys melee). I can't say I'm familiar with the current openers of the other tanks since I only tank on WAR, but they all have oGCDs and get into their opener fairly quick compared to WAR afaik. Alternatively, I wouldn't want to turn on Defiance right before I light it up with IR/IC spam, that's about guaranteed to pull off the MT. So I usually wait until IR is over with before turning it back on, then I'll try to turn it on about 10 seconds before any swap in case the MT is late with shirk. Lucy's advice of waiting 30-45 seconds is solid compared to waiting 3-5 GCDs.

The other stuff about burst openers is irrelevant other than having a better idea of which tanks might need to delay turning on their stance (within the context of the OP's question).

So yea, wait for burst openers to be done before turning it on. If you need to specifically be 2nd in aggro for the fight because mechanics (E3S, for example), what I would do is Provoke after 3 GCDs (no stance), as going in to burst without stance will keep you 2nd long enough for that to be over, then you can turn on your stance at some point later once the MT has a sufficient lead. On the flip side, if you're MT and about to swap, I've been trying to turn off stance before the swap so that it's a clean swap. I few times I left it on and ended up going into a burst phase and pulling the boss back, so I just try to work it in a little early in case something comes up, or maybe the other tank forgets to put their stance on, etc.

[WhyAmIHere]

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

Or if you just flat out do more damage as OT.
But then that's what Shirk is for unless mechanics demand it elsewhere.

[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.

[VenKitsune]

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.

i mean...yes and no? Provided both tanks are of similar gear and skill, turning on your stance 3-5 GCDs in wont matter because you'll BOTH be doing your burst at the same time, and they were the ones that pulled with the ranged ability, that just so happens to have an agro multiplier on it.