Is there a learning curve for tanking *alliance* raids?

[Omedon]

Good afternoon, all.

In my thousand or so days subbed, I've recently become a pretty comfortable tank for 4-person roulettes and even what 8-person normal first-time clears I've been doing as of late to catch up on various storylines, but there's this mental block where I stop at alliance content, and feel I must step back and either heal or DPS. Maybe it's the WoW programming of past years, but I feel the weight of "being responsible for" that many highly experienced people's enjoyment of the content, and assume that with so many tanks on the field that these fights must have more complex elements that I don't feel (as someone who is against "watch video first" level commitment) comfortable with.

Is this silly? Are there any big unintuitive leaps in tanking alliance content? I've observed in, for example, the copied factory that there are relatively intuitive moments of "split up and keep them separate," but how often do alliance raid tanks against a singular boss become more than "one guy has his stance on and the others are just durable DPS" type participants?

To be clear, I have ZERO interest in branching out into higher difficulties above and beyond "we saw the bosses and lived the story," in case there's some higher level of Alliance raiding that I wasn't aware of. (I don't think there is?)

Thanks in advance for any and all helpful replies

[SannaR]

ARR and HW have many instances during The Crystal Tower and Void Ark stories where tanks are ment to tank a spawned add. Normally keeping them separate is the key thing to do. In other raids like the current 24man and Nier raids there are tank busters put on place on each tank. Or unlucky dps if one goes out while the tanks are dead. You can probably put on your stance after a few rotations of the MT. Otherwise it's like any other 8 man raid. The Crystal Tower raid used to have parts that tanks were meant to deal with like the towers during the Behemoth fight as they were the only ones with enough defense if not health to deal with that mechanic. In the current 24man there are some shared tank busters, but most are geared enough that they can live through it.

[Brightamethyst]

but how often do alliance raid tanks against a singular boss become more than "one guy has his stance on and the others are just durable DPS" type participants?

Rarely. Everyone once in a while there will be adds that have to be tanked individually, but for the most part "one guys turns stance on and the others just DPS" basically covers it.

[Rayne6665]

In my experience when i was a dps for alliance raids, i study other tanks on what they do. After that, i took my gnb and felt comfortable tanking the alliance raids roulettes now. Its not that difficult or anything hard really

[Renalt]

Unfortunately MT in Alliance raids is much like 90% of tanking for everything else. Leap in, move through, tank on edge, face away from others.

On rare accounts adds come in
If a bunch then let OT take it, if 3 then each one takes one and separates them. Rinse and repeat for pretty much everything. There isn't a lot of tank swapping mechanics unless in extreme or higher.

[SomeGuy22]

Is this silly?

Not at all! It can feel intimidating being at the forefront of large scale encounters, I felt the same both when I started tanking and also when I unlocked my very first alliance raid. But that being said...

Are there any big unintuitive leaps in tanking alliance content?

Nope. The only unintuitive thing that I can think of is that, since the game doesn't consider other alliances as your party members, you can't use most of your skills on the other tanks (like TBN, shirk, and so forth).

(...)how often do alliance raid tanks against a singular boss become more than "one guy has his stance on and the others are just durable DPS" type participants?

Way less than it should, imo. If you're not MT, you should pretty much just be on the lookout for adds, tankbusters, or if the MT's about to take a dirt nap. I feel like the last raid that OTs had to really pay attention was in Dun Scaith. The more recent the raid, the more likely you'll just be blue DPS during the entire thing.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Learn your job's kit. (Which should be done in general)
Then learn what is best to use mitigation on and positioning to direct specific AoE's away from party members.
Identify specific markers for "tank buster" attacks to know when to stack with other tanks and when not to.

[Larirawiel]

Tanking is easy. Just spam two buttons and all is fine. If you have a big red thingy over you then use a damage reduction CD and you will be fine.


Cheers

[Jeeqbit]

there's this mental block where I stop at alliance content, and feel I must step back and either heal or DPS.

Remove the mental block. There's absolutely nothing different about it. Just run in with tank stance, pull, use rampart when there is a tank buster, pickup adds.

The only thing different is adds/bosses are often split into sets of 3.

Set A is on the left.
Set B is in the middle.
Set C is on the right.

So check in the party list which alliance you are. If you are A, go left, if you are B go middle, if you are C go right. And pickup the boss or add at that location.

Often, the adds will tether to eachother if too close, so keep them separate (at left, middle or right) unless you know that they don't tether. Tethers are bad because they empower eachother and make themselves invulnerable or hit too hard to be tanked.

That is literally all you need to know.

Maybe it's the WoW programming of past years, but I feel the weight of "being responsible for" that many highly experienced people's enjoyment of the content

There are 3 tanks. It's usually not a wipe if 1 tank dies, although rarely I suppose it could be if there is a tethered add situation.

and assume that with so many tanks on the field that these fights must have more complex elements

Nope. Just do it.

[Fawkes]

There's some stuff, like Warden's Warmth, where you ideally don't want to be on top of the DPS even before the marker shows up, because then they'll run around and you'll probably also move and kill some of them.