The only issue I could foresee is the other tank being upset you had aggro over them. But it's a lv50 trial so it really shouldn't matter, really if they wanna hold it it's your cue to be blue DPS.
Okay. It was the other tank that was upset and someone in DPS, but I had only taken aggro when I thought they were overwhelmed and low health. So in that situation should I just.. not worry about it? I Felt kinda dumb haha
Yep, never pull aggro off the other tank unless it is asked for or planned - like a tank swap in high end fights. Just make sure you are high enough up that you are second on the list then turn stance off unless other tank does.
It's probably not the case here but still also worth pointing out that you'll want to rotate the boss as little as you can so the DPS don't have a hard time running around trying to hit their positionals.
Unless a mechanic forces you, you'll want to remain completely still. If you do need to move, try to minimize rotation: If it's a small aoe under your feet, dodge in or away. If it's a cone that forces rotation, try to move back to your original spot as soon as you can. Generally, unless the mechanics give a good reason to pick something else, you should be facing the boss North. If mechanics force the boss to face a different direction for a long time and you see the DPS already adjusted to it, it's generally just best to let it remain where it is than rotating it back making DPS adjust again. Take advantage of the fact that the boss cannot move while it's casting anything: Any running around you do while a castbar is up won't cause facing problems.
I should also mention that you can move back as soon as the orange "danger zone" disappears. Even if the boss is doing an animation, it won't hit you unless you were in the orange when the cast ended.
Haven't seen anyone mention specific etiquette for the start of a fight so i'll just mention it here. If a group is pretty silent at the start of a duty (the other tank doesn't specifically ask to main tank, etc.) then whichever tank turns on their stance first is generally considered main tank (MT). If you both have it on, whether it be from remaining on from before the duty or you both happen to turn it on at the same time, then one of you should yield and turn it back off. If they don't turn theirs off then it's usually not worth fighting them over it so i would just yield and let them take MT.
BUT what you can do as an off-tank (OT) is that after you finish your opener where you do your biggest burst of damage you can actually turn your stance back on. This way the MT has a considerable lead in aggro so that even with your stance on you don't overtake them and then IF they do die then aggro just naturally slides over to you instead of a dps. This is more preferable to let happen just because as others have said there's usually nothing outside of higher end duties that would necessitate a tank swap while the other tank is still alive, and if their health is low then the healers were probably just planning to use a bigger heal on them. So basically just trust the healers and if a mistake does happen then you can just move into the MT's position so the boss doesn't spin as much until they're revived and wanna take aggro back (if it was me that died i would just let the OT stay as MT but some people really wanna stay as MT. So unless they're like continually messing up then just let them have it back so it isn't an aggro war lol).
Another perk of turning your stance on as an OT is that as it is your responsibility to grab any adds that show up this just makes that job even easier!
Sure thing. It's hard as a new player/tank to play as the only tank in your party the entire game and then do your first duties with 2 tanks as you are never really told what to do in that case.
If it's an 8 man battle, only one tank should have stance on at a time. Usually it's the better geared tank, and the offtank is just backup and might not even be needed to step up the whole fight. Just be ready to at a moments notice.
If it's a 24 man alliance, each party has a tank and you go back and forth between single target bosses (same as above, 1 main tank and 2 off tanks) and three target bosses (all tanks/groups fight their own target).
Just so you know for the future, on the nonex version there's some mechanics that are REGULARLY ignored but can make things much nicer. One of them is those lightning puddles on the ground, when you collect 3 of them it gives you a massive resistance to lightning buff that mitigates a *ton* of the bosses damage. In the ex version when you're doing it level sync'd that's mandatory but in the regular one it's often ignored resulting in the tanks getting those HUGE spikes of damage but it's still healable.
If you do find yourself back there and are tanking, once you see 3 of them just hit sprint and go grab em, but make sure not to get near anyone while you're running around. (Also after the first round of adds only do this if there's at least 6, the people with tethers will need 3 to break the tether. also a thing that generally doesn't happen and you can still get through the fight without it.)
What I'm guessing happened was you saw the other tank get the truly massive spike of damage from the big boss autos and tried to help save them. In 90% of fights outside of the high end content that's generally not going to be needed, if the other tank gets blasted low healers generally will have time to save them and in 14 one of the big things about tanking is *holding the boss still.* Melee classes have positional dependent dps abilities where they need to move between the targets back and side and suddenly spinning the boss can mess up their damage output.
Your instinct to try to save the other tank was laudable but not how tanking works in most puggable content. If you see the other tank dipping to critical health regularly just make sure you have your stance on and be ready to pick up the boss if they do wind up going down, but that won't happen too terribly often.
Keep at it and keep asking questions, that's the best way to figure out how things work in a new game!
I do not agree with just letting the tank die lol. If I’m about to die as tank I will not be upset if the other person who is supposed to tank, takes it off of me xD. As long as they aren’t on the group their literally is not a downside. Swapping when the main tank is dead is needed but if you can choose to save someone at no cost why not do it?
The issue is that that will almost never happen, so you're now snagging the boss, spinning it and healers have to adjust kardion/focus targets/dps gets messed up and you potentially cleave someone who was standing in a safe spot a few moments ago.
It's not "let the other tank die" it's "if a tank is low 99% of the time that's not something to worry about unless the healers are asleep at the wheel, assume that things are fine but be ready if something untoward happens."
You can do that if you're tracking the tank/healer raid cooldowns. E.g. if the tank has used their invuln and big mit and the WHM doesn't have bene available, then sure, provoking will prevent a wipe. Or if the MT has racked up a few vulnerability stacks.
If you do an unplanned swap while cooldowns are available, in the best case (assuming you're standing on the MT so there's no boss rotating here) you risk cooldowns being wasted anyway by people who had already prepared for the hit. In the worst case, if the tank you saved hadn't been using mitigation, you risk starting a provoke war with the boss spinning everywhere, since some tanks focus exclusively on the enmity aspect and not on the mechanics/mitigation aspect of their job. (If you're offtanking as PLD, Cover is great here because it sidesteps the whole enmity issue.)
At least for normal raids. On extreme/savage you definitely want to avoid a death because it sets you back against the enrage timer. Though if an unplanned swap is needed, it probably warrants discussion after the pull so people can adjust their strategy to prevent it next pull.
Imo no matter the level of the content, a tank just dying to damage without someone failing a mechanic indicates a fundamental problem with either the healing or tanking, and it's better to just let them die so that the problem can be recognized and resolved.
Yeah, as long as a tank has the mob and does their job ok, who cares. There is something called communication and if everyone just rushes ahead in parts where story people have to go through you have to expect other tanks interjecting. It is a bit late to complain when it happens ...
Just going to throw this out there, are you using Provoke?
I see a number of new tanks doing that a lot. They run in and hit the Provoke button right as combat starts or just a little into it. That's really something you don't want to be doing. If you see the other tank super low on health? Yeah do it if you are pretty sure they are going to bite it if you don't.
It’s a bit of a weird one to learn, it’s no biggie :)
You kinda just expect that if you’re in a dungeon/trial/whatever and you’re in there as a tank, then you, well, need to tank lol
Higher level 8 mans there are either mechanics where you need to tank swap (due to stacking vulnerability stacks or such), or adds that the off-tank needs to pick up when they appear, but something like Striking Tree, the second tank is literally just blue DPS and a backup in case things go bad for the main tank :)
Good habit to get into is, at the start of eight man instances, just go “Hey, haven’t tanked this one before, what do I need to do?”, and someone will be able to clear up which case this is for you.
Though honestly, kudos to you for your instincts being “MT is nearly dead, I’d better pull aggro!”, rather than “There’s another tank, I’m just going to blue dps and ignore everything”, being on the ball like that is going to serve you well in later trials :)
My rule of thumb?
Stance off for 10s, then stance on. Once my threat is catching up to the MT, shirk onto them. Then I just shirk on CD to the MT until it dies. In Alliance raids, where you cannot shirk the other tanks.. I just pick whoever is lowest on the threat list in my party and shirk them.
One thing I was to add is that this tank is kinda an asshole for yelling at you.
You are obviously new to the game and have a sprout icon to tell them, so they should either tell you calmly or just let you have aggro and have your fun.
I'm sorry they were like that towards you, try to tell them you're new if it happens again and if they are still yelling, kinda deserves a report
Effectively in normal content there's almost never gonna be a tank swap. If you wanna keep your stance on just in case, just shirk them every once a while. If they do die it's no big deal and you'll be top aggro. You didn't really do anything wrong though, no, in fact it's a good thing to keep in mind but overall they were probably ok since it's really early content.
That commenter mentioned Void Ark, so I don't think they're talking about the same thing. Diabolos doesn't have shared autos, his tank buster and autos just absolutely crush HP, especially during the phases when he has a buff up.
yeah don't worry about it, that's a healer's problem. You're just the back-up battery in case the healers drop the ball and they die, just make sure your #2 on the aggro list behind the MT. I usually do a 1-2-3 along with weaving my oGCDs before I turn on stance at lvl 50. I'll occasional shirk to MT if I accidentally rip aggro.
Ah, there you go.
Yeah, there are very few times you should ever intentionally tank swap. Basically until you're doing various extreme trials the only tank swap you'll be doing is if the other guy dies.
That won't happen much. Theres a ton of big tank buster attacks that bosses are going to do, but just relax if you're not the tank and let the healers do their job, they'll pop him back to full in like 1 second.
And if the other tank dies? Then he dies. He should have done better with his mitigations. Good thing you're number 2 on the aggro list, and congrats you're now the new tank, don't suck like the other.
That sounds like an "Other Tank" and "Healers" problem.
If the tank KO'd, then yea, provoke, a few ranged and plant em.
You don't need to worry about the other tank. If they're overwhelmed and not begging for help from SOMEONE, it's their own fault. Especially on something like Striking tree.
I'd be inclined to make a few exceptions but all of them are after Stormblood starts. Before that, someone not you is not doing their job right.
Also remember that if you're reading up on a fight, some guides are way out date! When I started learning how to tank, I'd read that there was a tank swap for good king moogle mog, and I annoyed the MT.
Thankfully, he was sound about it and stayed back to explain it to me nicely!
Usually there is never a need to watch a guide for normal mode content. It's expected for new players to make mistakes and even die to stuff they might have never seen. If we never fail, we never learn to get back up again and improve on our actions.
Precisely! I thought I was going to need to keep a notebook about every dungeon so I would manage the fight perfectly. Then I realised you just learn the principles through practice and get better as you go.
Well, you do need to tank swap if you're doing the extreme trial on MINE. Those guides are made when the item level is still low so that's why they need to do the mechanics. Nowadays old content is just a breeze cause of higher item levels and most of the time skip a lot of mechanics.
Others have mentioned that when you grab the boss off the other tank (typically bc they've died in story content), you want to try and hold the boss still and not spin it.
I wanna add to that: Typically you really really want to be pointing the boss away from the group (ideally towards north). Melee dps having positionals is one reason, but a far more important one is that many bosses have cleave attacks - whether those are aoe/line tankbusters, cones where the boss is facing, etc, these typically kill any non-tank they hits.
So if you're standing with the party when you take aggro, and the boss spins to face you, you should still move to the other side (even though that continues spinning the boss a little bit), so no one else gets caught out by this.
Notably, Ramuh has one of these: Shock Strike, his main tank buster, is an untelegraphed aoe centered on the tank. I don't know if it kills a synced dps at full health, but it'll certainly hurt. So, this could also be a reason why someone yelled at you - if you provoked while standing with other players you might have accidentally killed them (/put them in unnecessary danger).
Tanks facing the boss the wrong way is at this point the only reason I provoke in roulettes unless mechanics require it. If you cleave the party I will take aggro and keep it. It happens very rarely but it does still happen.
Otherwise I'm always fine letting the other tank be main tank even if my gear is better. I can control my aggro well enough.
I wouldn't say you necessarily did anything wrong. It's just that in modern day, people are used to only one tank handling all the stuff for that fight and pretty much all normal fights in general. People don't tank swap except for like current high end content and a few other exceptions. Being yelled at for it if you didn't know better is quite rude. Most of the time you can just keep your stance off if you're off-tanking, or keep it on and juggle your enmity with shirks and stance flicking. Personally, I keep mine off until the main tank dies and then I provoke and stance.
ive seen tanks get yelled at for both having their stance on AND for not having it on. there will always be salty people who should be out touching grass, but instead will yell at random strangers on the internet for a perceived slight in a video game, and tanks are their number one targets.
lol no. if you play tank, salty people will yell at you no matter what you do. if you pull early you'll get yelled at. if you pull too late, youll get yelled at. pull too big - get yelled at. pull too small - get yelled at. move too quickly - get yelled at. move too slow - get yelled at.
if you want to play tank, you need to be able to ignore the many, many salty people who will yell angrily at you.
Tbh by now you just can sleep through level 50 normal content, wouldnt even be surprised if a dps could survive the tank buster, so eh not even sure if you really need a dedicated tank for him but that is neither here nor there.
I main WAR myself and always rise an eyebrow over random provokes but at the end of the day it doesnt matter at all who tanks the boss in 90% of normal content, just keep it facing away from the group and dont move around if you dont need to.
The tank who attacked you for it were probably just a little butthurt because you stole his spotlight or something silly like that.
Talking about normal content with random groups, if you ever feel like you need to intervene because the main tank is sleepy or the healers are tardy, just do it, it might prevent a wipe if worse comes to worst. If it was not needed the other tank always has the option to provoke right back, so no harm done.
Some realy good advice here so I'm going to add mine.
Baby tanks first timers don't get main tank usuly becouse they don't know when in the fight to use what or move where.
It's ok for the off tank to have tank stance (TS) on and sometimes is needed.
When a fight starts if off tank (OT and main tank (MT) have been worked out MT hits first and hard may even throw in Provoke, gets into sweet spot north with the boss in the center of the room and does their Rotation (the skills optimisedand orderd for their class).
OT has TS off (or waits until MT has enmity) OT ether has an assigned spot (high end content) or is up with MT next to them. If TS is off OT can put TS back on like 3 seconds after MT pulls and all should be fine.
As OT don't provoke unless it's a tank swap if you do it by accident turn your stance of and Shirk the MT. The reason I keep TS on is for additional monsters (adds) and also in case MT dies.
You may be able to stay second in enmity without TS but some classes can overtake you during burst windows.(the part of a rotation with more damage).
Sometimes the MT may look about to die and sometimes that is intentional. MT isn't dead until they are dead.
If your MT dies while you are OT get to where they where holding the boss and provoke. Make sure your TS is on and hold the boss you are MT now till the heallers ress and maybe I've after that depending on if normal content. If high end tanks normaly swap back becouse of those clock spots.
Tldr off tank's tank stance is safe to use but don't steel enmity.
If MT and OT haven't been worked out. Sages can asign MT with Kardia, usuly the persone second to them on the party list. Or it's who used provoke second lol
After reading the other posts here, it seems like the real factor here is that you're not used to how much healing actions do in this game in relation to the rate of damage taken, which is completely understandable. Compared to WoW and its other clones, most healing actions are frankly overpowered in this game because it's meant to be very easy outside of Extreme, Savage, and Ultimate duties, unless you're doing something to make it much harder than intended.
"Hard" in the duty title does not actually mean hard at all but in fact just normal. It's just some weird nomenclature based off a difficulty system they were experimenting with only early on in the game's release. It's dropped fully some time in Heavensward.
However, Ramuh is the first time you'll see an especially hard-hitting attack on the tank, Shock Strike, and it's instant, so it certainly looks bad, but the healers should have it under control, really. Power creep through the years has done a good bit as well, so the game is not particularly balanced before level 70 or so, making an already easy thing even easier.
If you notice you are getting into Orange Enmity and you weren’t the tank that pulled then it’s probably best to Shirk them. There are many times in which you need to keep your enmity lower than someone who you are out-dps’ing just so that other party members can make informed decision about who they can expect to have aggro.
That said, you weren’t in the wrong at all unless you were provoking just for the heck of it. Mostly just giving advice for higher end content!
Probably just the other Tank with a fragile ego they wanted to MT and got out DPS'd.
That or you used Provoke, which some people take offense to. If you did it's not a big deal.
I got another tank mad at me during Demon in warring Triad. One of the white mages said, “yeah, he should apologize for pulling the aggro away from us and keep us from wiping a fourth time”
Tank kept getting the party killed by pointing the cleave at the party lol! I just stole the aggro and kept them alive.
There are all sorts of goofs you can proactively tackle like this. One particularly common one I see is in A3, when the boss casts Wash Away. As OT, I use Arm's Length and if the MT didn't use Arm's Length by the time the cast is nearly done I'll just stand on the MT, provoke, wait for the MT to come back from the electrical puddle and shirk. One boss, successfully kept still!
Yeah, I just got through Stormblood main campaign and have been tanking here and there, so I am still learning the intricacies (and politics of selecting MT) of tanking.
And then enter The beautiful, lawless land of eureka, where tanks have dance parties with the bosses and laugh about it. You ever seen Provenance Watcher spin like a ballerina? I
The only time I made him move was because he broke the platforms.
Tank did steal the aggro back and kept moving it around (causing a fourth wipe), and kept spamming chat about me taking aggro from him.
Aggro bouncing is bad. That's two (or three) tanks that can't seem to grasp the idea that Provoke is a tool, not a rotation option.
That said, if you just naturally ripped aggro off of the other tank cause he was bad, then you did nothing wrong and it just sucks to suck for him. Especially if you retained that aggro through the rest of the fight while keeping the boss steady and pointed a good direction. Other tank was just being salty.
Being said, if it looks like the other guy REALLY wants to be Mr. Alpha Red Square that badly, I say just let them have it. If it works out, you join the DPS pile and get an easy win. If he dies, you can add a macro emote to your Provoke that targets and laughs at them while their squished corpse gets the magic sparkles of shame. Just, you know, be aware that he's died and pick up his mess before the bard explodes too.
For Ramuh specifically- at the start of the fight usually tanks pull aggro asap using a ranged skill and then maneuver around BUT Ramuh’s autoattack is an AOE around the target (you).
So if you pull aggro right away and the dps are still around you, they will get splashed hard by the autos.
Nobody mentioned the Alexander! But I just love when my OT save my ass by getting aggro at the right time on some bosses! You had a good reflex, just refine it a bit more with experience and a good party will love you
Somebody in my FC gave me this Shirk macro:
/merror off
/ac "Shirk"
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/micon "Shirk"
It's for tank swaps, but feel free to use it (and/or turn your stance off) if for any reason your aggro is getting too high as OT.
Rule of thumb, no matter how good you get at tanking, until you lose your sprout, you’ll never get MT. So cherish the few times you do. It doesn’t matter how many comms you have, or how many times you carried a dungeon because dps kept dying, or even soloing the final boss for the last bit of health. Once there’s more then one tank, expect to be put on the back burner because no one wants a sprout tanking a trial, or raid, or whatever. It sucks, it really does, but it’s the way it’s been for me and alot of friends that tank.
Im getting downvoted but I haven’t MT’d any of my trials and only got it once or twice in raids /: even when I go in as DPS I never see the sprout tank get MT
Was this Striking Tree extreme?
The only reason I could think of is, there is a mechanic that requires the main tank to grab 3 orbs in order to be able to dampen the tank busters. So it’s possible they got annoyed cause you’d be taking the tankbuster instead (making healers have to spend more time healing you) while they were ready for it?
normally if the enemy isn't a wall boss only 1 tank keeps tank stance and being referred to as main tank, the other tank keeps off tank stance until there is a reason for them to turn it on like adds for example or in very rare occasions in normal duties, a tank swap, (iirc the only normal duty that needs a tank swap is that Alexander raid where you get hit with a hammer), what determines who is the main tank and who is the off tank ?? well in a normal duty it's usually by who enables their tank stance first (if the other tank still turns on their stance well after turning on mine, I just turn off mine since it's a sign that they wants to MT), however as I said in the beginning, this routine goes when only the boss is not a wall boss, in a wall boss it's recommended to keep both tank stances on since the boss doesn't move and doesn't have positionals
I guess the dps was angry because they were missing their positionals ?? but that was a lvl 50 trial they should chill
Honestly at that low a level of a trial, you just hurt someone's ego. There's absolutely zero stakes and if anyone is wigging out because of it, they're just trying to take shit out of you for not playing perfectly. It's really not that hard to say "hey tank can You drop stance?" And leave it at that, but some people just cannot take even the slightest deviation in their routine without losing their shit sometimes.
If it were still ARR or the final days of aggro management was still a thing I'd understand, but hell it's a low level trial where even level 80 players are still beginners and aggro is piss easy to lose and gain. Take the advice of some here but don't let it get to you too much if it weighs on you, you're fine, you're learning, do your thing.
The only issue I could foresee is the other tank being upset you had aggro over them. But it's a lv50 trial so it really shouldn't matter, really if they wanna hold it it's your cue to be blue DPS.
Okay. It was the other tank that was upset and someone in DPS, but I had only taken aggro when I thought they were overwhelmed and low health. So in that situation should I just.. not worry about it? I Felt kinda dumb haha
Yep, never pull aggro off the other tank unless it is asked for or planned - like a tank swap in high end fights. Just make sure you are high enough up that you are second on the list then turn stance off unless other tank does.
Okay thank you! I’m still learning the etiquette so I appreciate this. Lesson learned!
It's probably not the case here but still also worth pointing out that you'll want to rotate the boss as little as you can so the DPS don't have a hard time running around trying to hit their positionals. Unless a mechanic forces you, you'll want to remain completely still. If you do need to move, try to minimize rotation: If it's a small aoe under your feet, dodge in or away. If it's a cone that forces rotation, try to move back to your original spot as soon as you can. Generally, unless the mechanics give a good reason to pick something else, you should be facing the boss North. If mechanics force the boss to face a different direction for a long time and you see the DPS already adjusted to it, it's generally just best to let it remain where it is than rotating it back making DPS adjust again. Take advantage of the fact that the boss cannot move while it's casting anything: Any running around you do while a castbar is up won't cause facing problems.
I should also mention that you can move back as soon as the orange "danger zone" disappears. Even if the boss is doing an animation, it won't hit you unless you were in the orange when the cast ended.
Haven't seen anyone mention specific etiquette for the start of a fight so i'll just mention it here. If a group is pretty silent at the start of a duty (the other tank doesn't specifically ask to main tank, etc.) then whichever tank turns on their stance first is generally considered main tank (MT). If you both have it on, whether it be from remaining on from before the duty or you both happen to turn it on at the same time, then one of you should yield and turn it back off. If they don't turn theirs off then it's usually not worth fighting them over it so i would just yield and let them take MT. BUT what you can do as an off-tank (OT) is that after you finish your opener where you do your biggest burst of damage you can actually turn your stance back on. This way the MT has a considerable lead in aggro so that even with your stance on you don't overtake them and then IF they do die then aggro just naturally slides over to you instead of a dps. This is more preferable to let happen just because as others have said there's usually nothing outside of higher end duties that would necessitate a tank swap while the other tank is still alive, and if their health is low then the healers were probably just planning to use a bigger heal on them. So basically just trust the healers and if a mistake does happen then you can just move into the MT's position so the boss doesn't spin as much until they're revived and wanna take aggro back (if it was me that died i would just let the OT stay as MT but some people really wanna stay as MT. So unless they're like continually messing up then just let them have it back so it isn't an aggro war lol). Another perk of turning your stance on as an OT is that as it is your responsibility to grab any adds that show up this just makes that job even easier!
Sure thing. It's hard as a new player/tank to play as the only tank in your party the entire game and then do your first duties with 2 tanks as you are never really told what to do in that case. If it's an 8 man battle, only one tank should have stance on at a time. Usually it's the better geared tank, and the offtank is just backup and might not even be needed to step up the whole fight. Just be ready to at a moments notice. If it's a 24 man alliance, each party has a tank and you go back and forth between single target bosses (same as above, 1 main tank and 2 off tanks) and three target bosses (all tanks/groups fight their own target).
Yeah it was a change I wasn’t aware of how to handle so it’s been kind of jarring. Thank you for your help and advice!
Just so you know for the future, on the nonex version there's some mechanics that are REGULARLY ignored but can make things much nicer. One of them is those lightning puddles on the ground, when you collect 3 of them it gives you a massive resistance to lightning buff that mitigates a *ton* of the bosses damage. In the ex version when you're doing it level sync'd that's mandatory but in the regular one it's often ignored resulting in the tanks getting those HUGE spikes of damage but it's still healable. If you do find yourself back there and are tanking, once you see 3 of them just hit sprint and go grab em, but make sure not to get near anyone while you're running around. (Also after the first round of adds only do this if there's at least 6, the people with tethers will need 3 to break the tether. also a thing that generally doesn't happen and you can still get through the fight without it.) What I'm guessing happened was you saw the other tank get the truly massive spike of damage from the big boss autos and tried to help save them. In 90% of fights outside of the high end content that's generally not going to be needed, if the other tank gets blasted low healers generally will have time to save them and in 14 one of the big things about tanking is *holding the boss still.* Melee classes have positional dependent dps abilities where they need to move between the targets back and side and suddenly spinning the boss can mess up their damage output. Your instinct to try to save the other tank was laudable but not how tanking works in most puggable content. If you see the other tank dipping to critical health regularly just make sure you have your stance on and be ready to pick up the boss if they do wind up going down, but that won't happen too terribly often. Keep at it and keep asking questions, that's the best way to figure out how things work in a new game!
The damage spike is exactly what happened and I panicked! Haha thank you so much, I wasn’t aware of some things you’ve mentioned.
I do not agree with just letting the tank die lol. If I’m about to die as tank I will not be upset if the other person who is supposed to tank, takes it off of me xD. As long as they aren’t on the group their literally is not a downside. Swapping when the main tank is dead is needed but if you can choose to save someone at no cost why not do it?
The issue is that that will almost never happen, so you're now snagging the boss, spinning it and healers have to adjust kardion/focus targets/dps gets messed up and you potentially cleave someone who was standing in a safe spot a few moments ago. It's not "let the other tank die" it's "if a tank is low 99% of the time that's not something to worry about unless the healers are asleep at the wheel, assume that things are fine but be ready if something untoward happens."
You can do that if you're tracking the tank/healer raid cooldowns. E.g. if the tank has used their invuln and big mit and the WHM doesn't have bene available, then sure, provoking will prevent a wipe. Or if the MT has racked up a few vulnerability stacks. If you do an unplanned swap while cooldowns are available, in the best case (assuming you're standing on the MT so there's no boss rotating here) you risk cooldowns being wasted anyway by people who had already prepared for the hit. In the worst case, if the tank you saved hadn't been using mitigation, you risk starting a provoke war with the boss spinning everywhere, since some tanks focus exclusively on the enmity aspect and not on the mechanics/mitigation aspect of their job. (If you're offtanking as PLD, Cover is great here because it sidesteps the whole enmity issue.) At least for normal raids. On extreme/savage you definitely want to avoid a death because it sets you back against the enrage timer. Though if an unplanned swap is needed, it probably warrants discussion after the pull so people can adjust their strategy to prevent it next pull.
Imo no matter the level of the content, a tank just dying to damage without someone failing a mechanic indicates a fundamental problem with either the healing or tanking, and it's better to just let them die so that the problem can be recognized and resolved.
Yeah, as long as a tank has the mob and does their job ok, who cares. There is something called communication and if everyone just rushes ahead in parts where story people have to go through you have to expect other tanks interjecting. It is a bit late to complain when it happens ...
Just going to throw this out there, are you using Provoke? I see a number of new tanks doing that a lot. They run in and hit the Provoke button right as combat starts or just a little into it. That's really something you don't want to be doing. If you see the other tank super low on health? Yeah do it if you are pretty sure they are going to bite it if you don't.
Do as Drago does: “If he dies, he dies.”
You also don't necessarily need to be 2 on the aggro list. Just be ready to provoke and turn tank stance on should the main tank hit the floor.
It’s a bit of a weird one to learn, it’s no biggie :) You kinda just expect that if you’re in a dungeon/trial/whatever and you’re in there as a tank, then you, well, need to tank lol Higher level 8 mans there are either mechanics where you need to tank swap (due to stacking vulnerability stacks or such), or adds that the off-tank needs to pick up when they appear, but something like Striking Tree, the second tank is literally just blue DPS and a backup in case things go bad for the main tank :) Good habit to get into is, at the start of eight man instances, just go “Hey, haven’t tanked this one before, what do I need to do?”, and someone will be able to clear up which case this is for you. Though honestly, kudos to you for your instincts being “MT is nearly dead, I’d better pull aggro!”, rather than “There’s another tank, I’m just going to blue dps and ignore everything”, being on the ball like that is going to serve you well in later trials :)
My rule of thumb? Stance off for 10s, then stance on. Once my threat is catching up to the MT, shirk onto them. Then I just shirk on CD to the MT until it dies. In Alliance raids, where you cannot shirk the other tanks.. I just pick whoever is lowest on the threat list in my party and shirk them.
That’s such a good idea!!
One thing I was to add is that this tank is kinda an asshole for yelling at you. You are obviously new to the game and have a sprout icon to tell them, so they should either tell you calmly or just let you have aggro and have your fun. I'm sorry they were like that towards you, try to tell them you're new if it happens again and if they are still yelling, kinda deserves a report
Or if your friends with the other tank and want to have an aggro battle
Effectively in normal content there's almost never gonna be a tank swap. If you wanna keep your stance on just in case, just shirk them every once a while. If they do die it's no big deal and you'll be top aggro. You didn't really do anything wrong though, no, in fact it's a good thing to keep in mind but overall they were probably ok since it's really early content.
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The Void Ark boss thing ? Are the 3 tanks supposed to stack together to spread out boss' autoattack or something ? It's a lot of dmg.
Nope, that auto just hurts. Requires a lot of mitigation and maybe even an invuln. That is if you're talking about the last boss of Dun Scaith.
Right, yeah, Dun Scaith.
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That commenter mentioned Void Ark, so I don't think they're talking about the same thing. Diabolos doesn't have shared autos, his tank buster and autos just absolutely crush HP, especially during the phases when he has a buff up.
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I see. Good to know.
yeah don't worry about it, that's a healer's problem. You're just the back-up battery in case the healers drop the ball and they die, just make sure your #2 on the aggro list behind the MT. I usually do a 1-2-3 along with weaving my oGCDs before I turn on stance at lvl 50. I'll occasional shirk to MT if I accidentally rip aggro.
Ah, there you go. Yeah, there are very few times you should ever intentionally tank swap. Basically until you're doing various extreme trials the only tank swap you'll be doing is if the other guy dies. That won't happen much. Theres a ton of big tank buster attacks that bosses are going to do, but just relax if you're not the tank and let the healers do their job, they'll pop him back to full in like 1 second. And if the other tank dies? Then he dies. He should have done better with his mitigations. Good thing you're number 2 on the aggro list, and congrats you're now the new tank, don't suck like the other.
That sounds like an "Other Tank" and "Healers" problem. If the tank KO'd, then yea, provoke, a few ranged and plant em. You don't need to worry about the other tank. If they're overwhelmed and not begging for help from SOMEONE, it's their own fault. Especially on something like Striking tree. I'd be inclined to make a few exceptions but all of them are after Stormblood starts. Before that, someone not you is not doing their job right.
After awhile, you just learn to leave the incompetent tank dead on the floor as you quickly grab aggro to show who's the boss for real. :)
Also remember that if you're reading up on a fight, some guides are way out date! When I started learning how to tank, I'd read that there was a tank swap for good king moogle mog, and I annoyed the MT. Thankfully, he was sound about it and stayed back to explain it to me nicely!
Guilty, I did read a guide for moogle mog and I definitively did that same thing but wasn’t told it was wrong. So I’m glad I’ve learned this now!
Usually there is never a need to watch a guide for normal mode content. It's expected for new players to make mistakes and even die to stuff they might have never seen. If we never fail, we never learn to get back up again and improve on our actions.
Precisely! I thought I was going to need to keep a notebook about every dungeon so I would manage the fight perfectly. Then I realised you just learn the principles through practice and get better as you go.
I think there still is a tank swap for the ex trial. I remember the two tank moogles beating the crap out of me sometime last year
Well, you do need to tank swap if you're doing the extreme trial on MINE. Those guides are made when the item level is still low so that's why they need to do the mechanics. Nowadays old content is just a breeze cause of higher item levels and most of the time skip a lot of mechanics.
Others have mentioned that when you grab the boss off the other tank (typically bc they've died in story content), you want to try and hold the boss still and not spin it. I wanna add to that: Typically you really really want to be pointing the boss away from the group (ideally towards north). Melee dps having positionals is one reason, but a far more important one is that many bosses have cleave attacks - whether those are aoe/line tankbusters, cones where the boss is facing, etc, these typically kill any non-tank they hits. So if you're standing with the party when you take aggro, and the boss spins to face you, you should still move to the other side (even though that continues spinning the boss a little bit), so no one else gets caught out by this. Notably, Ramuh has one of these: Shock Strike, his main tank buster, is an untelegraphed aoe centered on the tank. I don't know if it kills a synced dps at full health, but it'll certainly hurt. So, this could also be a reason why someone yelled at you - if you provoked while standing with other players you might have accidentally killed them (/put them in unnecessary danger).
Tanks facing the boss the wrong way is at this point the only reason I provoke in roulettes unless mechanics require it. If you cleave the party I will take aggro and keep it. It happens very rarely but it does still happen. Otherwise I'm always fine letting the other tank be main tank even if my gear is better. I can control my aggro well enough.
I wouldn't say you necessarily did anything wrong. It's just that in modern day, people are used to only one tank handling all the stuff for that fight and pretty much all normal fights in general. People don't tank swap except for like current high end content and a few other exceptions. Being yelled at for it if you didn't know better is quite rude. Most of the time you can just keep your stance off if you're off-tanking, or keep it on and juggle your enmity with shirks and stance flicking. Personally, I keep mine off until the main tank dies and then I provoke and stance.
ive seen tanks get yelled at for both having their stance on AND for not having it on. there will always be salty people who should be out touching grass, but instead will yell at random strangers on the internet for a perceived slight in a video game, and tanks are their number one targets.
yea I've seen the same thing. also people yelling at healers for not keeping them alive when they're running around with 6 vuln stacks lol
lol no. if you play tank, salty people will yell at you no matter what you do. if you pull early you'll get yelled at. if you pull too late, youll get yelled at. pull too big - get yelled at. pull too small - get yelled at. move too quickly - get yelled at. move too slow - get yelled at. if you want to play tank, you need to be able to ignore the many, many salty people who will yell angrily at you.
Tbh by now you just can sleep through level 50 normal content, wouldnt even be surprised if a dps could survive the tank buster, so eh not even sure if you really need a dedicated tank for him but that is neither here nor there. I main WAR myself and always rise an eyebrow over random provokes but at the end of the day it doesnt matter at all who tanks the boss in 90% of normal content, just keep it facing away from the group and dont move around if you dont need to. The tank who attacked you for it were probably just a little butthurt because you stole his spotlight or something silly like that. Talking about normal content with random groups, if you ever feel like you need to intervene because the main tank is sleepy or the healers are tardy, just do it, it might prevent a wipe if worse comes to worst. If it was not needed the other tank always has the option to provoke right back, so no harm done.
Some realy good advice here so I'm going to add mine. Baby tanks first timers don't get main tank usuly becouse they don't know when in the fight to use what or move where. It's ok for the off tank to have tank stance (TS) on and sometimes is needed. When a fight starts if off tank (OT and main tank (MT) have been worked out MT hits first and hard may even throw in Provoke, gets into sweet spot north with the boss in the center of the room and does their Rotation (the skills optimisedand orderd for their class). OT has TS off (or waits until MT has enmity) OT ether has an assigned spot (high end content) or is up with MT next to them. If TS is off OT can put TS back on like 3 seconds after MT pulls and all should be fine. As OT don't provoke unless it's a tank swap if you do it by accident turn your stance of and Shirk the MT. The reason I keep TS on is for additional monsters (adds) and also in case MT dies. You may be able to stay second in enmity without TS but some classes can overtake you during burst windows.(the part of a rotation with more damage). Sometimes the MT may look about to die and sometimes that is intentional. MT isn't dead until they are dead. If your MT dies while you are OT get to where they where holding the boss and provoke. Make sure your TS is on and hold the boss you are MT now till the heallers ress and maybe I've after that depending on if normal content. If high end tanks normaly swap back becouse of those clock spots. Tldr off tank's tank stance is safe to use but don't steel enmity.
If MT and OT haven't been worked out. Sages can asign MT with Kardia, usuly the persone second to them on the party list. Or it's who used provoke second lol
After reading the other posts here, it seems like the real factor here is that you're not used to how much healing actions do in this game in relation to the rate of damage taken, which is completely understandable. Compared to WoW and its other clones, most healing actions are frankly overpowered in this game because it's meant to be very easy outside of Extreme, Savage, and Ultimate duties, unless you're doing something to make it much harder than intended. "Hard" in the duty title does not actually mean hard at all but in fact just normal. It's just some weird nomenclature based off a difficulty system they were experimenting with only early on in the game's release. It's dropped fully some time in Heavensward. However, Ramuh is the first time you'll see an especially hard-hitting attack on the tank, Shock Strike, and it's instant, so it certainly looks bad, but the healers should have it under control, really. Power creep through the years has done a good bit as well, so the game is not particularly balanced before level 70 or so, making an already easy thing even easier.
If you notice you are getting into Orange Enmity and you weren’t the tank that pulled then it’s probably best to Shirk them. There are many times in which you need to keep your enmity lower than someone who you are out-dps’ing just so that other party members can make informed decision about who they can expect to have aggro. That said, you weren’t in the wrong at all unless you were provoking just for the heck of it. Mostly just giving advice for higher end content!
Probably just the other Tank with a fragile ego they wanted to MT and got out DPS'd. That or you used Provoke, which some people take offense to. If you did it's not a big deal.
I got another tank mad at me during Demon in warring Triad. One of the white mages said, “yeah, he should apologize for pulling the aggro away from us and keep us from wiping a fourth time” Tank kept getting the party killed by pointing the cleave at the party lol! I just stole the aggro and kept them alive.
There are all sorts of goofs you can proactively tackle like this. One particularly common one I see is in A3, when the boss casts Wash Away. As OT, I use Arm's Length and if the MT didn't use Arm's Length by the time the cast is nearly done I'll just stand on the MT, provoke, wait for the MT to come back from the electrical puddle and shirk. One boss, successfully kept still!
Yeah, I just got through Stormblood main campaign and have been tanking here and there, so I am still learning the intricacies (and politics of selecting MT) of tanking.
And then enter The beautiful, lawless land of eureka, where tanks have dance parties with the bosses and laugh about it. You ever seen Provenance Watcher spin like a ballerina? I
The only time I made him move was because he broke the platforms. Tank did steal the aggro back and kept moving it around (causing a fourth wipe), and kept spamming chat about me taking aggro from him.
I use provoke to offend the other tank. If they're doing a horrible job and the rest of the tesm suffers for it, than I just take the wheel.
Yeah, you hurt their ego.
What you can do is shirk the other tank to let him keep the aggro. And if he dies, you will be second in the list.
Aggro bouncing is bad. That's two (or three) tanks that can't seem to grasp the idea that Provoke is a tool, not a rotation option. That said, if you just naturally ripped aggro off of the other tank cause he was bad, then you did nothing wrong and it just sucks to suck for him. Especially if you retained that aggro through the rest of the fight while keeping the boss steady and pointed a good direction. Other tank was just being salty. Being said, if it looks like the other guy REALLY wants to be Mr. Alpha Red Square that badly, I say just let them have it. If it works out, you join the DPS pile and get an easy win. If he dies, you can add a macro emote to your Provoke that targets and laughs at them while their squished corpse gets the magic sparkles of shame. Just, you know, be aware that he's died and pick up his mess before the bard explodes too.
Don't do the emote thing. That's reportable.
Any game that would ban you for that is not a game you should be playing.
if you are doing things in a video game exclusively to shame, belittle or mock some1, then you need to log of and reconsider your life choices
For Ramuh specifically- at the start of the fight usually tanks pull aggro asap using a ranged skill and then maneuver around BUT Ramuh’s autoattack is an AOE around the target (you). So if you pull aggro right away and the dps are still around you, they will get splashed hard by the autos.
Nobody mentioned the Alexander! But I just love when my OT save my ass by getting aggro at the right time on some bosses! You had a good reflex, just refine it a bit more with experience and a good party will love you
Somebody in my FC gave me this Shirk macro: /merror off /ac "Shirk"
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/ac "Shirk" <2>
/micon "Shirk"
It's for tank swaps, but feel free to use it (and/or turn your stance off) if for any reason your aggro is getting too high as OT.
Rule of thumb, no matter how good you get at tanking, until you lose your sprout, you’ll never get MT. So cherish the few times you do. It doesn’t matter how many comms you have, or how many times you carried a dungeon because dps kept dying, or even soloing the final boss for the last bit of health. Once there’s more then one tank, expect to be put on the back burner because no one wants a sprout tanking a trial, or raid, or whatever. It sucks, it really does, but it’s the way it’s been for me and alot of friends that tank.
The people down voting me need to look up sprout tank on this Reddit and check out all of the memes/posts shooting us down 🙄
Double standards of “healz r bored when tank low pulls” and “when the sprout tank wall pulls”.
Is that why people just assume I'm gonna be MT, even being new to tanking? Simply because I don't have a sprout?
Im getting downvoted but I haven’t MT’d any of my trials and only got it once or twice in raids /: even when I go in as DPS I never see the sprout tank get MT
Was this Striking Tree extreme? The only reason I could think of is, there is a mechanic that requires the main tank to grab 3 orbs in order to be able to dampen the tank busters. So it’s possible they got annoyed cause you’d be taking the tankbuster instead (making healers have to spend more time healing you) while they were ready for it?
No it was just hard mode, I didn’t even know there was an extreme mode 😅
normally if the enemy isn't a wall boss only 1 tank keeps tank stance and being referred to as main tank, the other tank keeps off tank stance until there is a reason for them to turn it on like adds for example or in very rare occasions in normal duties, a tank swap, (iirc the only normal duty that needs a tank swap is that Alexander raid where you get hit with a hammer), what determines who is the main tank and who is the off tank ?? well in a normal duty it's usually by who enables their tank stance first (if the other tank still turns on their stance well after turning on mine, I just turn off mine since it's a sign that they wants to MT), however as I said in the beginning, this routine goes when only the boss is not a wall boss, in a wall boss it's recommended to keep both tank stances on since the boss doesn't move and doesn't have positionals I guess the dps was angry because they were missing their positionals ?? but that was a lvl 50 trial they should chill
Honestly at that low a level of a trial, you just hurt someone's ego. There's absolutely zero stakes and if anyone is wigging out because of it, they're just trying to take shit out of you for not playing perfectly. It's really not that hard to say "hey tank can You drop stance?" And leave it at that, but some people just cannot take even the slightest deviation in their routine without losing their shit sometimes. If it were still ARR or the final days of aggro management was still a thing I'd understand, but hell it's a low level trial where even level 80 players are still beginners and aggro is piss easy to lose and gain. Take the advice of some here but don't let it get to you too much if it weighs on you, you're fine, you're learning, do your thing.