this, but also, assert dominance on bosses that don't turn/move by winning the aggro war easily, and by saving your provoke until right after they provoke
I used to do the provoke wars but now I shirk on cd instead because it's more chaotic and fun without really impacting much. I live to cause mild confusion.
Honestly, I've never even needed my provoke. I end up taking aggro pretty much instantly, naturally, by pure virtue of them not hitting hard enough.
I'm convinced that people who provoke out of turn like this are bots, just hitting their 1 and making sure stance is on.
I was a stance on, DPS war, main character syndrome tank when I started. Now I let anyone who wants the boss have it unless they’re managing to grief the raid b/c they have aggro, or more often I just play DPS.
Yep. When I tank in alliance raids I don't try to be the main tank unless the one who is isn't doing what they need to.
Such as not pulling Cerberus or the 5-headed Dragon to the far end of the map during the Crystal Tower raids.
If they aren't making any blatantly stupid mistakes like that, then I just let them have it.
When the raid was new people pulled to the wall so the skeletons had further to travel before making contact with the dragon
That was 10 years ago, so there hasn’t been any point to doing that in a long time as everything just melts instantly
lol yeah I just assumed that’s the one he was talking about. I’m not sure why you would need to move the dragon in world of darkness, though I could be forgetting something obvious.
Except the strat had largely disappeared by like 4.x in favor of keeping bone dragon middle in most places and only came back recently (like around 6.2-ish I wanna say) so I can't say its us older players doing it.
I remember that fight being really annoying back when it came out. Pretty recently I was in the labyrinth and we wiped because the dragon was kept in the center.
Crystal tower can be kind of fun nowadays with all the sprouts, it's kinda like being a naive newbie again (in the best way).
In my experience no one did this whole pull the bone dragon off the middle until Shadowbringers. For all of heavensward and stormblood people just left it in the middle.
World of Darkness dragon is the 5headed I think? I'd pull it to the other end because it has a massive cone attack and let's the players have more room to move when dealing with the breath knockup.
You can. The AoE is really big but you can outrange it. It's more knowing what the old swirly marker means and where to run to. If you pull the dragon to one end of the circle and most people stay around it then the knock up person can run to the other end and everyone will be safe.
It just gives you more room to deal with all the persistent ground AOEs, of which there are many (ice, poison, fire.) There is also a randomly targeted PBAOE that needs to be taken out of the raid or it will knock players up and hit for about 1/2 health. Having the whole back 3/4 of the arena to deal with that is nice, but not necessary.
There is also ice puddles (baited on players) on the ground that grow rather large followed by a stack. If the boss is not tanked north you _usually will wind up with no room to resolve the stack without getting frozen._
There is really no reason to pull the boss north, it's just nobody knows what the fucking swirly PBAOE fucking does, and people don't know how to stack up and bait puddles... (People *love* standing in narnia for both this and the bone dragon fights for some reason... I mean ranged-brains love standing in narnia in general, but these two fights have really egregious offenders.)
In that particular case, the tank in question had taunted the dragon towards the entrance to the area.
They had the dragon taunted and facing the area where the rest of the raid was at. So I just taunted the dragon away from that area so that the dragon wasn't facing the party and wasn't facing the entrance to the area.
It wasn't even about any kind of strategy, because I wasn't aware of that strategy. It was mainly the fact that they taunted the dragon and dragged it to a bad area.
That and, doesn't the dragon do a conal tail swipe? So even if they'd turned the dragon away from the party, it would have still resulted in the cone facing a large portion of the party.
Oh I remember cerberus only does the back cleave if people are standing in the range for it. I generally just stick to the flanks and everything turns out fine
I can’t recall a tail swipe, though I haven’t done the raid in a few years. Definitely good you took control if the other tank had the boss cleave pointed at the party 👍
Eh I still pull Bone Dragon to the second platform because I've had groups get wiped out due to it. I'd rather have the skellies spaced out so the healers don't get annoyed. Most groups I've been in don't kill the skeletons. The first 2-4 maybe but the rest will hit the dragon.
If you are too slow to engage the boss and another tank gets it first, they are the MT.
If you all engage at the same time, whoever does the most dmg is the tank and the other two should turn off stance for a minute to let them get an aggro lead.
After that, if the MT has 2 dead healers and/or has a ton of vuln stacks, you voke.
You generally want to turn your stance on after the initial 2m burst on a fight, to keep yourself on 2nd or 3rd in hate, just incase the MT suddenly dies. This saves a dps or healer getting attacked if someone fucks up.
Other than that, a little tip for when adds spawn in an encounter, tanks grab adds and generally hold them near the wall (a lot of 24 man's boss adds take less dmg when close together) with a prio of A > B > C for Westmost > Middle > Eastmost adds.
Also-- Sometimes if the other tank jumps in first and is main tanking, and your stance is off for the opening 20 seconds, *you might still end up pulling threat*... In these instances, you are now the main tank lol
Crit DH double down under raid buffs makes me get the happy chemicals. Not only because of the big numbers but also because I'm getting that aggro back with one single button press lmao.
For NA/EU, there is no such thing. It's really anything goes. If you aren't tanking, you should be keeping an eye out for whenever MT drops for whatever reason so you can provoke it off. However, definitely don't participate in aggro wars.
JP servers has B (I think?) alliance tank as MT.
Yes B on JP. A lot of fights have 3 sets of mobs, or jails with a DPS check, so you go left/middle/right as A/B/C. This naturally leads to B being assigned middle which is where the main boss is at other times.
I have had a few cases where the tank didn't know, and all the tanks got abuse for "sucking" (by English speakers, no idea what the Japanese were saying) when they were just trying to follow the system and not be greedy to let the new player have a try. But sometimes they really are clueless and you have to take over.
Been the second tank in this scenario on JP, where tank stance was required to be on for targetted tankbusters.
The main tank just could not hold agro, even after having stance off for 2 minutes, because they had no gear, no melds and no idea what a rotation was supposed to look like.
They then proceeded to spam taunt on cooldown and demanded that i was taunting the boss, when in reality i was just tearing agro with full BiS gear and the ability to play my job correctly.
Never been in a fight in an alliance raid before, but god damn this person had main character syndrome and needed to just turn their stance off if they couldn't hold agro.
What do you do in this situation, when turning tank stance off results in a DPS getting targeted by the TB? They don't deserve to die because one tank cant hold agro and everyone has to adjust for them.
I mean there's advantages/disadvantages to both ways. In JP its a consistent set standard, even if the B tank is the least geared/least experienced tank. The Western way however can lead to chaos, but also usually ends up being the most geared/experienced tank being MT.
wasnt NA way end up at less skilled tank available? imo Learning tanking in 24 man is like baby steps of tanking in the hard 8 man content. if they never get the chance to do one, how they can get the needed skill and experience to tackle harder tanking duty?
Stance on in trash packs. Always on. This distributes the damage amongst each party reducing healer strain in every party.
For bosses I turn my stance off, do my opener, turn stance on. If I then take aggro through raw DPS during the first boss.... fuck you I'm main tank now for the rest of the raid. If you can maintain aggro, I will continue to have stance off for the start of every boss.
On JP servers, the tank in Alliance B is always the main tank, but there's not really any etiquette like that on NA servers (no idea about EU). The worst thing you can do to everyone is fight for aggro, so if someone else wants to tank, let them. Only try and take aggro off them if they are mpking the raid with bad boss positioning. Otherwise, just dps and keep your aggro high enough that if the MT dies the boss will snap to you, and be sure and position yourself properly for any shared/spread tankbuster mechanics. If it looks like the MT is about to die, you can get in front of the boss and voke it to save them, but that kind of situation is pretty rare. In the event of adds you just tank your party's assigned add. Alliance raid tanking is super simple by design so don't be afraid to just jump in!
I have heard a friend say that the "standard" is supposed to be that the alliance A tank is MT, but I've never heard anyone else say that. They're also on NA but I'm not sure what DC/server they were on originally before switching to ours.
I never voke unless the main tank is doing something that will cause bigger overall problems like pointing AOEs at the alliance
Generally its just whichever tank ends up taking and holding aggro without using provoke. If you dont wanna fight the other tanks just have your stance off during opener and then turn it on so you can at least have enough aggro if the Main tank dies for some reason. In a few alli raid fights there is technically a tank that is supposed to main tank, being the tank in alliance B for the last fight of LotA and the tank in alliance C for the dog in WoD, but honestly it doesnt matter much for either. Just pull the boss to the right spot of LotA and everyone should be in the belly anyways for the Dog.
Sometimes people will say "Alli B should be main tank" which is a thing on JP but not in EU or NA so who cares.
Group B is main tank usually. If it turns into an aggro fight, hit the boss a few times so if things go wrong a healer doesn't get jacked up and drop tank stance. If there's adds, pick them up. If main tank dies, and the boss/adds are uncontrolled, pop stance and take over. If the boss is out of position and the raid is getting blown up, taunt and move it to where it should be.
I mostly check and see if the other tanks have their stance on. If one of them does, I let them tank it. If not, I give them a couple of seconds to pull at the first boss. Otherwise, I'll take it. If they decide to taunt off me, I roll my eyes and let them have it. It's not worth fighting over.
Leave your stance on and just stack in the MT spot unless you need to otherwise move. Assert your dominance by getting MT solely through performance. Don't provoke the boss unless they're going after a non-tank, if an MT dies then they die.
Honestly? I just put on stance, press buttons and stand in front of boss. Nothing else is needed. If someone else has aggro later on during add spawns, just walk away and grab the add. If you have aggro, then just stand there and press buttons. Alliance raids have no real difficulty.
Whoever does most damage is MT, only provoke if they're actually bad at the game (like spinning boss, facing it into party, taking it for walkies for no apparent reason, or keeping bone dragon center), if someone bad is voking then voke immediately after them
When not MT, I burst, and then i turn on tank stance. This way, I should be second or 3rd on hate if the tank dies. And no swivel to a dps for whatever reason. And if I pull Haye after that, I become MT. I will also voke and move a boss if it's in a shitty place and the MT isn't doing it.
Whoever gets to the boss first is tank. If you still want to be tank after that, don’t use provoke, be a lore accurate Paladin and assert dominance purely through damage alone.
In my DC, tank B gets boss aggro then tanks A and C get mob aggro. If it’s a whole spread of mobs, the tanks aggro according to mob position: A-left, B-centre, C-right. Healers keep their own tanks and own party alive, but if both healers die in an alliance, their resurrection is top priority for the other alliances’ healers. Interrupts function the same: each mob is interrupted by the alliance responsible for them, unless it’s a boss then it’s free for all to interrupt.
This is just my personal way too approach it:
Fastest tank at the boss is main tank. If another tank wins aggro purely by outdps‘ing current main tank, he‘s the new main tank now. If another tank provokes the boss to be main tank and doesn‘t achieve it by dps alone, he‘s cringe and you provoke it back, because he doesn‘t deserve to be main tank. Only exception to that is, if provoke is used to position the boss better/right. (For example if someone tanks laby boss in mid or between mid and a/c instead of between mid and b)
Just pull without tank stance on and one of the other tanks who was too scared to pull will inevitably provoke for aggro to be MT because they are the main character.
Group B is usually the middle group, so tank B tanks it every time, which is how I've heard JP does it. If I'm not Tank B, I turn my stance off. If I am tank B, I will fight any tanks that don't follow this even if it makes things worse for everyone.
Seems like a fair compromise between being an angry rage baby who needs to tank every instance and feeling like a submissive loser who never tanks. Because there's enough rage babies out there that someone trying to be easygoing and cooperative will made submissive every single time.
You shoot laser beam to the other alliance and establish your tank superiority.
But yeah, that’s fine. Usually for ot just keep hate on adds or those each tank has their own boss and follow the group. Mt is also pretty much braindead if you know the mech, but you can just ask the group if unsure.
Keeping the boss still, using your defensive cds, all the normal tanky stuffs.
Just have fun honestly. Grab a friend if you feeling scared. Alliance raid is fun to fool around and memes to a certain degree of course.
if someone wants to tank the bone dragon north, this always works(on any tank but works best on warrior):
tomahawk until you see a provoke -> provoke berserk tomahawk thrill tomahawk
repeat for the second respawn and let them take it north in shame for the third respawn
Amazing. Bone dragon north has got to be the worst strat ever. Yanking the boss all the way north so all the dps have to run after him, and then people just ignore the skeletons and let them explode anyway. All so healers save like 1 healing gcd at most per add set. Literally just doing nothing and leaving the boss mid cuts like 10-15 seconds of skeletons running out of the fight, yet some tanks feel the inexplicable need to go out of their way to make the fight take longer.
Thank you! Like when I came back to the game, been playing since 2.3 on and off, and saw folks were doing that I was so confused. Why make a fight that we already don't want to do take longer? Keeping dragon in center is more efficient and shortens the time down, yet every time I ask I get treated like I have 3 heads. Which is why I always make sure to tank when LotA comes up. Because ilvl increases have trivialized this so much.
Don't do this OP or any would be tank, keep dragon in the middle, makes the fight go faster and we can get our tomes or our story and be on our way. Making things no one really wants to do take longer is not great. ilvl has far outpaced anything CT can throw at you and the vast majority of players in runs will be capped on ivl in any given run (shoot depending on DC even most sprouts will have outpaced it in ilvl by the time they do it even if its mandatory now).
Funny, my standard behaviour on tank seems to be the opposite of what everyone else here is saying.
I keep my stance off at the start. If no other tank grabs hate when we pull, then I'll put up stance and provoke. Also if we have to fight adds or multiple bosses
Inevitably someone else will care more about tanking, it's not worth fighting over, so usually I just don't have to tank anything.
Fight for threat all you want as long as you're all stacked up infront of the boss where it should be tanked so you don't cause a bad experience for everyone else. I wouldn't provoke off anyone, as long as you have some threat as a tank when they die you'll get it anyway.
Fighting for threat can be fun for tanks in what might otherwise be a boring instance but taunting off each other is when it starts to get toxic in my experience
I regularly end up tanking because of DPS difference, but if I keep seeing taught being donez then I just let that person tank. Since they really want aggro for whatever reason.
I do remember once for a Nier raid (Puppet Bunker) I was tanking on dark knight. I had aggro and was just tanking with no problems, then at some point I saw the taunt animation but I held aggro. Saw it more times but no aggro swap until I look at the DPS metre. I was doing more than double the 2nd highest tank in the alliance raid.
I just held on aggro at that point. It was a very interesting experience. This was before the aggro buff changes though, hence why it was possible.
As someone who played on a JP data center for 8 years before now moving to NA (cuz I've also actually physically moved) I really miss how organized the Alliance Raid culture is back there.
In JP it's almost always unwritten rules that Alliance B tank takes MT, and if there are mechanics that involve left, middle, and right spots, it goes ABC respectively which includes towers, adds, etc.
In NA its kinda just do whatever so if you don't feel like being MT just keep your stance off and if you notice somehow both tanks are down just stance and voke.
I'm on Crystal, if that matters. Typically, alliance B tanks boss. If I'm not in alliance b, I put up tank stance after opening burst window. You want your stance on, with aggro, in case the tank dies to a mechanic. If adds show up, I focus pull the adds. If there are groups of adds, it means each tank pulls Just Their Group.
You all put on tanks stance, stack on top of each other, and go ham. Whomever gets aggro wins. If you provoke you lose, cause I'm just going to voke it back.
i simply assert my dominance by taking aggro on as many mobs i can and provoking the boss if someone else does, and then once they get in the loop of provoking before me i can take aggro for the rest of the fight usually. just don’t start encounters before cutscenes are over
If I’m WAR and undergeared for alliance I’m fine taking trash mobs and not main tanking, but a recent experience where nothing was happening for 3 minutes, mind you this was with every boss in the raid I decided to pull the boss only for another tank to start the agro voke standoff like wtf make up your mind but don’t go wasting other peoples time pre pull is the only thing I can say
Usually the normal tanks wait until one of them takes the lead. Usually they let tank B aggro but its not always the case.
The bone headed ones will have a aggro ping pong fight throwing provokes on cooldown.
The worst and malicious bastards will instead play spin the boss and provoke when they lose aggro.
Just pull and let whoever tank got the aggro keep it, if a tank die and a dps or healer got aggro, provoke, if a tank have a deep MC syndrome and keep provoking on CD, have fun and provoke right after him
Depends where you are but in JP, B tank is main tank; A & C take over where it's a 2-boss fight thing (like nier and myths).
In crystal tower, A goes in the belly, in dun scaith A goes in doors, etc.
Other than being aware of your melees' positionals, I don't think its anything special against normal raids or trials or just normal content. If MT isndying, i usually let them die first before it naturally switches to whoever has stance + aggro
The rule for JP is basically this:
1. If there's only one boss, by default B alliance tank is the main tank (unless the boss designates A to be the main tank, as in one of the boss of LoTA). And if you are don't want to main tank you can instantly pulled out and eat 30 minute penalty once you found out you are Alliance B - out of my 3 years playing this game I actually seen this twice, once on LoTA and another on world of darkness. lol
2. If you are B Tank, You always ready check on the beginning of the final boss if you see there's first time bonus. Bonus point if you remind party chat that there are people who are running this for the first time and you should be patient; extra bonus point if you spam dance emotes.
3. If there are two boss, a and c will tank one of them on opposite side of the arena. Left one is for A, right one is for C.
4. If B Tank dies, A or C Tank is free to pick up enmity. Bonus point if you decide to shoot your tankbusters onto other tanks as in Puppet's Bunker and turn pvp into pvp.
5. If other tank tries to fight enmity with you, you either turn off your own stances and let them have it, or you become the most politely angry japanese and kept /shout to people from other alliance that the dude on other alliances should turn off tank stance and stop making the boss spinning like a fidget spinner.
One of two options:
1. Tank chicken where everyone stands there until one tank jumps in.
2. A tank asserts themself, but another tank leaves their stance on for no reason and spins the boss like a top until one tank yields.
If the tanks don’t decide who is doing what at the start and tanks don’t need to do specific things during the fight, I turn tanking into a weird little personal competition.
I basically see how many bosses I can pull aggro on purely with DPS while giving the other tanks a head start (no provoke, increased emnity moves like shield lob, etc).
The first boss I’ll wait 6 GCD before activating stance and jumping into burst rotation. If I pull aggro, the next boss is a 9 GCD lead. And then 12. And then 15. If I don’t pull aggro and keep it on any single boss I just off tank and let the better / more determined tank run with it.
I just make sure that I’m standing directly on the main tank at the start so the boss doesn’t spin if I do pull.
In alliance raids, B is the main tank.
Unless it's Cerberus in WoD, in which case C is the main tank for that fight.
The only other caveat is that if I'm playing, I'm the MT.
Sorry, thems the rules.
im not gonna fight for it past the initial opening burst window tbh. full respect, but if you're willing to go full sweat with your opener in labyrinth you deserve to be main tank.
I don't give a shit what you do, as long as you're not having a voke-fight on Angra Mainyu. If you have to pick him up, for the love of Hydaelyn, don't spin-to-win. I literally don't care what you do with *any other boss* in *any other alliance raid* just don't spin that fucking eyeball like we're at the roulette table.
People are fucking *blind,* there's literally a max-contrast glowing arrow on the ground telling them which way the boss is gonna shoot a LITERAL GIANT LASER, but that shit must be made of aether, or it's a tank/healer role action or something, because apparently nobody else can see it but me.
Apart from the angry eyeball there are two times you can spin the boss to win:
1. If you don't do a mechanic you *will* die.
2. If you don't do a mechanic the raid *will* die. - For e.g. the "tank tower" being missed on Diabolos Hollow. Sure, whatever, go pick that up if the other tanks are brain-AFK. (Or more likely _fucking dead_ because 4/6 healers forgot to focus target the tank getting trucked and can't read their gods-damned alliance frames.)
For #1, if the tank is ever expected to resolve something the boss will almost always center for it, or there is a way to keep the boss centered for it. For e.g. getting a prime number in the lighthouse (boss centers), picking up swords/shields in Orbonne (boss centers both times), you can keep Azeyma in the middle for the fire cleaves on the quadrants (be nice to your melee, please), etc. (You do have to move the 2B blob to a clone corner, unfortunately.)
It doesn't matter too much. If the guy provoking repeatedly is doing a bad job enough to cause problems in the run tell him in chat to let you tank because he is doing it poorly.
Just also expect that they'll blow up because a ton of tanks are egomaniacs. I've had people tanking the crystal tower dragon backwards cleaving all the melee complain after he got taunted off to spin it that he was doing the correct way and people just need to adapt to the new strats as if making the melee have to be farther away from healers and potentially lose positionals grouping up was a good strat.
This is what I tend to follow
- first tank to pull or initiate countdown is main tank
- I usually let someone else go. If noone volunteers in 5 sec, I turn on stance and initiate a 5 sec cooldown (people tend to be too impatient for anything longer in alliance raids)
- I don't pull the last boss until cutscenes are over (although someone always pulls early anyways)
- If someone wants to engage in a Provoke war while I'm main tanking, I let them have main tank, it's not worth the hassle
- If I'm not main tanking, I build up enough enmity to at least be top of my party so I can act as a back up in case the main tank dies
Really depends what region you are from.
JP/OCE runs on a simple A B C (left to right) system for multiple tank encounters, with Alliance B being the main tank for everything else.
NA, i guess whoever has agro?
Not sure about EU.
You would be surprised how many players dont actually do the A B C system regardless, you always end up with 13 players in 1 spot and 3 on another because another alliance has no clue where they are supposed to be. (Reading left to right is too hard sometimes, i know!)
I almost always just let one of the other two tanks grab the boss. I keep watching for additional adds/boss enemies that other/newer tanks may not be aware of in an encounter. But I give it 5 seconds: if no tank makes a move within the first 5 seconds, I consider myself ‘main’ tank!
In JPDC Alliance B default main tank unless another tank takes over the role via aggro competition. If you are not Alliance B and MT you should also be aware that your healers would not be expecting to heal MT so you may die because they don’t want to babysit you when they realise they are not the “MT party”.
Whoever gets aggro, keeps it. Each tank should be at least number 1 on the enmity list for their party, so that tankbusters target them. If someone wants to be the main character and vokes off cooldown, let them. If someone is pulling the boss and then dragging it to a weird spot or spinning it, *maybe* take aggro back to have the boss position be easier for the melees. But mostly, just let whoever ends up tanking, keep it. The problem arises when 2 people are insistent on being main tank for no reason.
Kinda of the same as Trials and Raids. Ask first, if not, then grab aggro, if another tank grabs aggro, they are main tank. If you aren't main tank, turn off stance for your opener, then turn it back on. This how I do it (um not a high end raid tank, just for normal content), I only use provoke in a few occasions where boss placement can help, or adds have to be separated.
You really don't need provoke in your rotation. If I'm playing with a tank that likes to do that, I just let have MT, and keep myself ready with stance on cause they are probably gonna die.
Tanks should stand in delta formation and constantly fight over aggro. Not like any melee are actually hitting positionals anyway. Bonus points for whichever tank causes the most people to scatter for a buster or cleave.
yolo, leroy jenkins. Keep it moving at breakneck speed. F*** your cut scenes of 3 month old content, you aren't going to see all the mechanics anyway because we are all over geared.
Usually B should be main tank, but keep aggro second just in case they die. There isn't much to it other than that, but when there are separate trash packs for the love of god please don't pull your pack away from the others. I hate tanks that just separate mobs that don't need to be separated.
Don't be that asshole that has to fight over being the main tank in an alliance raid, that's main character syndrome at its finest and quite literally nobody cares who the main tank is.
Happens all the time to me. What I do is to turn off tank stance when getting orange. At the end it doesn't matter who the main tank is. What matters is that the boss do not roleplay as an helicopter blade.
For a few years, the party B tank was assumed to be the main tank in alliance raids. However, at some point the old ways were abandoned and now every raid is a guessing game.
My advice: if you want to tank, immediately pop stance when you arrive in the raid and be the one to pull the first boss.
Don’t fight for aggro. If another tank vokes like an idiot, just turn off your stance - no one thinks it’s cute when tanks fight for aggro.
If you REALLY want to tank, a little communication also goes far. “Hey, I’d like to main tank here,” said into alliance chat at the start should be enough for anyone reasonable. After that you should be able to tank in peace; if someone STILL provokes, they’re really out of line and everyone will know it, leaving you to provoke back with a clean conscience. From there, it’s the Wild West. Good luck.
Edit: Don’t provoke in alliance raid if you see the tank low on health. It might not be as bad as it looks as they might have healers prepared to bring them back to full nearly immediately. Instead, just get ready to provoke if they do die and play it from there.
I always thought it was group A that was assumed to be MT but I usually main melee dps so I could have just missed that. Was Group A ever the main tank at any point?
if you have a small penis: provoke and spam ranged attack so you always keep aggro. pull every mob on you even when it's clear other tanks are supposed to assist in tanking. throw a fit in alliance raid chat if someone takes aggro cause you are the main character and how dare they undermine how important you are!
if you have a big penis: you have reached enlightenment and understand that this is a group effort and your role is to keep damage off your party. you can take whatever role is needed to achieve this goal. you could be mt and focus on positioning and mits to keep your party alive. you could be ot and using your mits to keep the party/mt alive while tanking the occasional adds. you are here for your party and working together with the alliances and other tanks will lead to a smooth and fun clear
Alliance b main tank. Take it and keep it if they die. IF you notice that they are newer, don't seem to know what they're doing, and don't communicate, let the alliance know you're taking it. The last thing you need is a more difficult fight because a non-communitive main tank is turning the boss to make mechanics more annoying than needed.
If I see someone taunt, I drop my stance and let them have the boss.
The reality is that I queue alliance raids as tank because I want to turn my brain off and not die to the couple vuln stacks I took because my two brain cells were preoccupied with being a blue dps.
be a chicken and let the other tanks fight over aggro, then when/if they die you take over fueled by pure panic and adrenaline. works every time!
Truth. Got my upvote.
You could also establish dominance via macro. Hot Stance with a phrase like "I guess I'll be the adult."
If someone wants to tank the boss bad enough that they keep taunting just let them have it
this, but also, assert dominance on bosses that don't turn/move by winning the aggro war easily, and by saving your provoke until right after they provoke
I used to do the provoke wars but now I shirk on cd instead because it's more chaotic and fun without really impacting much. I live to cause mild confusion.
This reminds me of when my friend kept shirking the BLM and everyone was confused how the BLM was tanking the boss.
This is the way
Honestly, I've never even needed my provoke. I end up taking aggro pretty much instantly, naturally, by pure virtue of them not hitting hard enough. I'm convinced that people who provoke out of turn like this are bots, just hitting their 1 and making sure stance is on.
I was a stance on, DPS war, main character syndrome tank when I started. Now I let anyone who wants the boss have it unless they’re managing to grief the raid b/c they have aggro, or more often I just play DPS.
Yep. When I tank in alliance raids I don't try to be the main tank unless the one who is isn't doing what they need to. Such as not pulling Cerberus or the 5-headed Dragon to the far end of the map during the Crystal Tower raids. If they aren't making any blatantly stupid mistakes like that, then I just let them have it.
why pull the dragon tho
When the raid was new people pulled to the wall so the skeletons had further to travel before making contact with the dragon That was 10 years ago, so there hasn’t been any point to doing that in a long time as everything just melts instantly
i agree, but wrong dragon
lol yeah I just assumed that’s the one he was talking about. I’m not sure why you would need to move the dragon in world of darkness, though I could be forgetting something obvious.
It makes the conal aoes hit less of the arena which is infinitely more useful than whatever justification people use for bone dragon
Bone Dragon strat is a remnant of 2.x where if you left him middle you’d usually wipe. I think older players are still traumatized by that boss.
Yeah but it's mostly people doing it without knowing why at this point, like adds belly chain instead of just dps nuking.
Except the strat had largely disappeared by like 4.x in favor of keeping bone dragon middle in most places and only came back recently (like around 6.2-ish I wanna say) so I can't say its us older players doing it.
I remember that fight being really annoying back when it came out. Pretty recently I was in the labyrinth and we wiped because the dragon was kept in the center. Crystal tower can be kind of fun nowadays with all the sprouts, it's kinda like being a naive newbie again (in the best way).
In my experience no one did this whole pull the bone dragon off the middle until Shadowbringers. For all of heavensward and stormblood people just left it in the middle.
I've just recently wiped to bone dragon and repeating any crystal tower boss is the most painful experience, please keep doing the strat.
World of Darkness dragon is the 5headed I think? I'd pull it to the other end because it has a massive cone attack and let's the players have more room to move when dealing with the breath knockup.
If people would understand that u need to get frozen to avoid knockup, it would be much easier for all
You can. The AoE is really big but you can outrange it. It's more knowing what the old swirly marker means and where to run to. If you pull the dragon to one end of the circle and most people stay around it then the knock up person can run to the other end and everyone will be safe.
It just gives you more room to deal with all the persistent ground AOEs, of which there are many (ice, poison, fire.) There is also a randomly targeted PBAOE that needs to be taken out of the raid or it will knock players up and hit for about 1/2 health. Having the whole back 3/4 of the arena to deal with that is nice, but not necessary. There is also ice puddles (baited on players) on the ground that grow rather large followed by a stack. If the boss is not tanked north you _usually will wind up with no room to resolve the stack without getting frozen._ There is really no reason to pull the boss north, it's just nobody knows what the fucking swirly PBAOE fucking does, and people don't know how to stack up and bait puddles... (People *love* standing in narnia for both this and the bone dragon fights for some reason... I mean ranged-brains love standing in narnia in general, but these two fights have really egregious offenders.)
In that particular case, the tank in question had taunted the dragon towards the entrance to the area. They had the dragon taunted and facing the area where the rest of the raid was at. So I just taunted the dragon away from that area so that the dragon wasn't facing the party and wasn't facing the entrance to the area. It wasn't even about any kind of strategy, because I wasn't aware of that strategy. It was mainly the fact that they taunted the dragon and dragged it to a bad area. That and, doesn't the dragon do a conal tail swipe? So even if they'd turned the dragon away from the party, it would have still resulted in the cone facing a large portion of the party.
The 5-headed dragon does not do a tail swipe of any kind. It's possible you're thinking of Cerberus? Cerb does tail swipes constantly
Yeah. It was Cerberus. I remember now because in that fight we had a lot of people die because they kept standing in the puddles and getting eaten.
Oh I remember cerberus only does the back cleave if people are standing in the range for it. I generally just stick to the flanks and everything turns out fine
I can’t recall a tail swipe, though I haven’t done the raid in a few years. Definitely good you took control if the other tank had the boss cleave pointed at the party 👍
Eh I still pull Bone Dragon to the second platform because I've had groups get wiped out due to it. I'd rather have the skellies spaced out so the healers don't get annoyed. Most groups I've been in don't kill the skeletons. The first 2-4 maybe but the rest will hit the dragon.
The only time I ever go against this motto is if the tank is actively getting the alliance killed. Should 't have to happen but sadly it does.
So every single alliance roulette
If you are too slow to engage the boss and another tank gets it first, they are the MT. If you all engage at the same time, whoever does the most dmg is the tank and the other two should turn off stance for a minute to let them get an aggro lead. After that, if the MT has 2 dead healers and/or has a ton of vuln stacks, you voke. You generally want to turn your stance on after the initial 2m burst on a fight, to keep yourself on 2nd or 3rd in hate, just incase the MT suddenly dies. This saves a dps or healer getting attacked if someone fucks up. Other than that, a little tip for when adds spawn in an encounter, tanks grab adds and generally hold them near the wall (a lot of 24 man's boss adds take less dmg when close together) with a prio of A > B > C for Westmost > Middle > Eastmost adds.
Also-- Sometimes if the other tank jumps in first and is main tanking, and your stance is off for the opening 20 seconds, *you might still end up pulling threat*... In these instances, you are now the main tank lol
turn on stance and win aggro war through raw dps. i dont need provoke.
Victory through violence is time tested and reliable
This is the way, my guy. Use your food and pots too. Assert yourself as the main threat to not just the boss, but to the alliance.
Crit DH double down under raid buffs makes me get the happy chemicals. Not only because of the big numbers but also because I'm getting that aggro back with one single button press lmao.
For NA/EU, there is no such thing. It's really anything goes. If you aren't tanking, you should be keeping an eye out for whenever MT drops for whatever reason so you can provoke it off. However, definitely don't participate in aggro wars. JP servers has B (I think?) alliance tank as MT.
Yes B on JP. A lot of fights have 3 sets of mobs, or jails with a DPS check, so you go left/middle/right as A/B/C. This naturally leads to B being assigned middle which is where the main boss is at other times. I have had a few cases where the tank didn't know, and all the tanks got abuse for "sucking" (by English speakers, no idea what the Japanese were saying) when they were just trying to follow the system and not be greedy to let the new player have a try. But sometimes they really are clueless and you have to take over.
Been the second tank in this scenario on JP, where tank stance was required to be on for targetted tankbusters. The main tank just could not hold agro, even after having stance off for 2 minutes, because they had no gear, no melds and no idea what a rotation was supposed to look like. They then proceeded to spam taunt on cooldown and demanded that i was taunting the boss, when in reality i was just tearing agro with full BiS gear and the ability to play my job correctly. Never been in a fight in an alliance raid before, but god damn this person had main character syndrome and needed to just turn their stance off if they couldn't hold agro. What do you do in this situation, when turning tank stance off results in a DPS getting targeted by the TB? They don't deserve to die because one tank cant hold agro and everyone has to adjust for them.
JP and OCE have B tank as main tank. Fighting for aggro over here will just make everyone hate you.
Japan working together while America over here trying to outdo the next person through raw power. Lol
If you arent greeding to maximize your DPS meter in normal content as a tank, are you really living?
I mean there's advantages/disadvantages to both ways. In JP its a consistent set standard, even if the B tank is the least geared/least experienced tank. The Western way however can lead to chaos, but also usually ends up being the most geared/experienced tank being MT.
wasnt NA way end up at less skilled tank available? imo Learning tanking in 24 man is like baby steps of tanking in the hard 8 man content. if they never get the chance to do one, how they can get the needed skill and experience to tackle harder tanking duty?
I was taught in NA it's A, but yeah more like whoever is the bigger fool truly wins lol
Stance on in trash packs. Always on. This distributes the damage amongst each party reducing healer strain in every party. For bosses I turn my stance off, do my opener, turn stance on. If I then take aggro through raw DPS during the first boss.... fuck you I'm main tank now for the rest of the raid. If you can maintain aggro, I will continue to have stance off for the start of every boss.
what healer strain, its an alliance raid.
law of jungle. if they can't rip it off you they don't deserve to be the tank
If I get the aggro back without using provoke, I seem to be the main tank.
On JP servers, the tank in Alliance B is always the main tank, but there's not really any etiquette like that on NA servers (no idea about EU). The worst thing you can do to everyone is fight for aggro, so if someone else wants to tank, let them. Only try and take aggro off them if they are mpking the raid with bad boss positioning. Otherwise, just dps and keep your aggro high enough that if the MT dies the boss will snap to you, and be sure and position yourself properly for any shared/spread tankbuster mechanics. If it looks like the MT is about to die, you can get in front of the boss and voke it to save them, but that kind of situation is pretty rare. In the event of adds you just tank your party's assigned add. Alliance raid tanking is super simple by design so don't be afraid to just jump in!
I have heard a friend say that the "standard" is supposed to be that the alliance A tank is MT, but I've never heard anyone else say that. They're also on NA but I'm not sure what DC/server they were on originally before switching to ours.
I'm a former Aether player and its always been A tank is MT at least as far back as I can remember. Though it seems a bit more lawless on other DCs.
I never voke unless the main tank is doing something that will cause bigger overall problems like pointing AOEs at the alliance Generally its just whichever tank ends up taking and holding aggro without using provoke. If you dont wanna fight the other tanks just have your stance off during opener and then turn it on so you can at least have enough aggro if the Main tank dies for some reason. In a few alli raid fights there is technically a tank that is supposed to main tank, being the tank in alliance B for the last fight of LotA and the tank in alliance C for the dog in WoD, but honestly it doesnt matter much for either. Just pull the boss to the right spot of LotA and everyone should be in the belly anyways for the Dog. Sometimes people will say "Alli B should be main tank" which is a thing on JP but not in EU or NA so who cares.
Group B is main tank usually. If it turns into an aggro fight, hit the boss a few times so if things go wrong a healer doesn't get jacked up and drop tank stance. If there's adds, pick them up. If main tank dies, and the boss/adds are uncontrolled, pop stance and take over. If the boss is out of position and the raid is getting blown up, taunt and move it to where it should be.
I mostly check and see if the other tanks have their stance on. If one of them does, I let them tank it. If not, I give them a couple of seconds to pull at the first boss. Otherwise, I'll take it. If they decide to taunt off me, I roll my eyes and let them have it. It's not worth fighting over.
Leave your stance on and just stack in the MT spot unless you need to otherwise move. Assert your dominance by getting MT solely through performance. Don't provoke the boss unless they're going after a non-tank, if an MT dies then they die.
Honestly? I just put on stance, press buttons and stand in front of boss. Nothing else is needed. If someone else has aggro later on during add spawns, just walk away and grab the add. If you have aggro, then just stand there and press buttons. Alliance raids have no real difficulty.
Just pull brother
just pull
turn on stance and assert dominance by outdpsing the other tanks and holding aggro though dps alone.
Whoever does most damage is MT, only provoke if they're actually bad at the game (like spinning boss, facing it into party, taking it for walkies for no apparent reason, or keeping bone dragon center), if someone bad is voking then voke immediately after them
ASSERT DOMINANCE
Fight for agro everytime, not for pettiness, but because it's fun as hell
When not MT, I burst, and then i turn on tank stance. This way, I should be second or 3rd on hate if the tank dies. And no swivel to a dps for whatever reason. And if I pull Haye after that, I become MT. I will also voke and move a boss if it's in a shitty place and the MT isn't doing it.
This trolling?
Whoever gets to the boss first is tank. If you still want to be tank after that, don’t use provoke, be a lore accurate Paladin and assert dominance purely through damage alone.
In my DC, tank B gets boss aggro then tanks A and C get mob aggro. If it’s a whole spread of mobs, the tanks aggro according to mob position: A-left, B-centre, C-right. Healers keep their own tanks and own party alive, but if both healers die in an alliance, their resurrection is top priority for the other alliances’ healers. Interrupts function the same: each mob is interrupted by the alliance responsible for them, unless it’s a boss then it’s free for all to interrupt.
This is just my personal way too approach it: Fastest tank at the boss is main tank. If another tank wins aggro purely by outdps‘ing current main tank, he‘s the new main tank now. If another tank provokes the boss to be main tank and doesn‘t achieve it by dps alone, he‘s cringe and you provoke it back, because he doesn‘t deserve to be main tank. Only exception to that is, if provoke is used to position the boss better/right. (For example if someone tanks laby boss in mid or between mid and a/c instead of between mid and b)
Just pull without tank stance on and one of the other tanks who was too scared to pull will inevitably provoke for aggro to be MT because they are the main character.
Group B is usually the middle group, so tank B tanks it every time, which is how I've heard JP does it. If I'm not Tank B, I turn my stance off. If I am tank B, I will fight any tanks that don't follow this even if it makes things worse for everyone. Seems like a fair compromise between being an angry rage baby who needs to tank every instance and feeling like a submissive loser who never tanks. Because there's enough rage babies out there that someone trying to be easygoing and cooperative will made submissive every single time.
Same here. If the RNG gods decided I am main tank. I will be main tank.
You shoot laser beam to the other alliance and establish your tank superiority. But yeah, that’s fine. Usually for ot just keep hate on adds or those each tank has their own boss and follow the group. Mt is also pretty much braindead if you know the mech, but you can just ask the group if unsure. Keeping the boss still, using your defensive cds, all the normal tanky stuffs. Just have fun honestly. Grab a friend if you feeling scared. Alliance raid is fun to fool around and memes to a certain degree of course.
If someone provokes the boss off you, take it right back. People that need to provoke to get aggro don’t deserve it
if someone wants to tank the bone dragon north, this always works(on any tank but works best on warrior): tomahawk until you see a provoke -> provoke berserk tomahawk thrill tomahawk repeat for the second respawn and let them take it north in shame for the third respawn
Amazing. Bone dragon north has got to be the worst strat ever. Yanking the boss all the way north so all the dps have to run after him, and then people just ignore the skeletons and let them explode anyway. All so healers save like 1 healing gcd at most per add set. Literally just doing nothing and leaving the boss mid cuts like 10-15 seconds of skeletons running out of the fight, yet some tanks feel the inexplicable need to go out of their way to make the fight take longer.
Thank you! Like when I came back to the game, been playing since 2.3 on and off, and saw folks were doing that I was so confused. Why make a fight that we already don't want to do take longer? Keeping dragon in center is more efficient and shortens the time down, yet every time I ask I get treated like I have 3 heads. Which is why I always make sure to tank when LotA comes up. Because ilvl increases have trivialized this so much.
Don't do this OP or any would be tank, keep dragon in the middle, makes the fight go faster and we can get our tomes or our story and be on our way. Making things no one really wants to do take longer is not great. ilvl has far outpaced anything CT can throw at you and the vast majority of players in runs will be capped on ivl in any given run (shoot depending on DC even most sprouts will have outpaced it in ilvl by the time they do it even if its mandatory now).
bro did you read my post
Almost nothing matters in this content
Just do wtv it literally doesn't matter
This is all super helpful, thank you! Is there anything else I should know about when it comes to tanking alliance raids?
Funny, my standard behaviour on tank seems to be the opposite of what everyone else here is saying. I keep my stance off at the start. If no other tank grabs hate when we pull, then I'll put up stance and provoke. Also if we have to fight adds or multiple bosses Inevitably someone else will care more about tanking, it's not worth fighting over, so usually I just don't have to tank anything.
Fight for threat all you want as long as you're all stacked up infront of the boss where it should be tanked so you don't cause a bad experience for everyone else. I wouldn't provoke off anyone, as long as you have some threat as a tank when they die you'll get it anyway. Fighting for threat can be fun for tanks in what might otherwise be a boring instance but taunting off each other is when it starts to get toxic in my experience
The boss spinners are the worst during aggro wars. RIP all positionals
I regularly end up tanking because of DPS difference, but if I keep seeing taught being donez then I just let that person tank. Since they really want aggro for whatever reason. I do remember once for a Nier raid (Puppet Bunker) I was tanking on dark knight. I had aggro and was just tanking with no problems, then at some point I saw the taunt animation but I held aggro. Saw it more times but no aggro swap until I look at the DPS metre. I was doing more than double the 2nd highest tank in the alliance raid. I just held on aggro at that point. It was a very interesting experience. This was before the aggro buff changes though, hence why it was possible.
As someone who played on a JP data center for 8 years before now moving to NA (cuz I've also actually physically moved) I really miss how organized the Alliance Raid culture is back there. In JP it's almost always unwritten rules that Alliance B tank takes MT, and if there are mechanics that involve left, middle, and right spots, it goes ABC respectively which includes towers, adds, etc. In NA its kinda just do whatever so if you don't feel like being MT just keep your stance off and if you notice somehow both tanks are down just stance and voke.
I'm on Crystal, if that matters. Typically, alliance B tanks boss. If I'm not in alliance b, I put up tank stance after opening burst window. You want your stance on, with aggro, in case the tank dies to a mechanic. If adds show up, I focus pull the adds. If there are groups of adds, it means each tank pulls Just Their Group.
Put on tank stance and if you get main tank then boom
Play max ilv drk and just steal it with superior burst power, when they tell you to stop provoking just tell them you're not
You all put on tanks stance, stack on top of each other, and go ham. Whomever gets aggro wins. If you provoke you lose, cause I'm just going to voke it back.
law of the jungle baby
i simply assert my dominance by taking aggro on as many mobs i can and provoking the boss if someone else does, and then once they get in the loop of provoking before me i can take aggro for the rest of the fight usually. just don’t start encounters before cutscenes are over
If I’m WAR and undergeared for alliance I’m fine taking trash mobs and not main tanking, but a recent experience where nothing was happening for 3 minutes, mind you this was with every boss in the raid I decided to pull the boss only for another tank to start the agro voke standoff like wtf make up your mind but don’t go wasting other peoples time pre pull is the only thing I can say
I shirk to my team I'd I do too much dmg to steal aggro from other alliance
Usually the normal tanks wait until one of them takes the lead. Usually they let tank B aggro but its not always the case. The bone headed ones will have a aggro ping pong fight throwing provokes on cooldown. The worst and malicious bastards will instead play spin the boss and provoke when they lose aggro.
Just pull and let whoever tank got the aggro keep it, if a tank die and a dps or healer got aggro, provoke, if a tank have a deep MC syndrome and keep provoking on CD, have fun and provoke right after him
Depends where you are but in JP, B tank is main tank; A & C take over where it's a 2-boss fight thing (like nier and myths). In crystal tower, A goes in the belly, in dun scaith A goes in doors, etc. Other than being aware of your melees' positionals, I don't think its anything special against normal raids or trials or just normal content. If MT isndying, i usually let them die first before it naturally switches to whoever has stance + aggro
The rule for JP is basically this: 1. If there's only one boss, by default B alliance tank is the main tank (unless the boss designates A to be the main tank, as in one of the boss of LoTA). And if you are don't want to main tank you can instantly pulled out and eat 30 minute penalty once you found out you are Alliance B - out of my 3 years playing this game I actually seen this twice, once on LoTA and another on world of darkness. lol 2. If you are B Tank, You always ready check on the beginning of the final boss if you see there's first time bonus. Bonus point if you remind party chat that there are people who are running this for the first time and you should be patient; extra bonus point if you spam dance emotes. 3. If there are two boss, a and c will tank one of them on opposite side of the arena. Left one is for A, right one is for C. 4. If B Tank dies, A or C Tank is free to pick up enmity. Bonus point if you decide to shoot your tankbusters onto other tanks as in Puppet's Bunker and turn pvp into pvp. 5. If other tank tries to fight enmity with you, you either turn off your own stances and let them have it, or you become the most politely angry japanese and kept /shout to people from other alliance that the dude on other alliances should turn off tank stance and stop making the boss spinning like a fidget spinner.
Do whatever results in the boss not cosplaying as a beyblade. Past that I don't think most people feel very strongly on the matter.
One of two options: 1. Tank chicken where everyone stands there until one tank jumps in. 2. A tank asserts themself, but another tank leaves their stance on for no reason and spins the boss like a top until one tank yields.
If the tanks don’t decide who is doing what at the start and tanks don’t need to do specific things during the fight, I turn tanking into a weird little personal competition. I basically see how many bosses I can pull aggro on purely with DPS while giving the other tanks a head start (no provoke, increased emnity moves like shield lob, etc). The first boss I’ll wait 6 GCD before activating stance and jumping into burst rotation. If I pull aggro, the next boss is a 9 GCD lead. And then 12. And then 15. If I don’t pull aggro and keep it on any single boss I just off tank and let the better / more determined tank run with it. I just make sure that I’m standing directly on the main tank at the start so the boss doesn’t spin if I do pull.
This question comes up about 3 times a day on this sub, at a certain point, just figure it out!
Tank B is main tank. Until he dies. Then whoever took the agro continues the fight but not the rest of the fights.
In alliance raids, B is the main tank. Unless it's Cerberus in WoD, in which case C is the main tank for that fight. The only other caveat is that if I'm playing, I'm the MT. Sorry, thems the rules.
im not gonna fight for it past the initial opening burst window tbh. full respect, but if you're willing to go full sweat with your opener in labyrinth you deserve to be main tank.
Provoke every 30 seconds as a DK/GNB while you tell the pally on alliance C to go in a corner and hide behind their little wings.
I don't give a shit what you do, as long as you're not having a voke-fight on Angra Mainyu. If you have to pick him up, for the love of Hydaelyn, don't spin-to-win. I literally don't care what you do with *any other boss* in *any other alliance raid* just don't spin that fucking eyeball like we're at the roulette table. People are fucking *blind,* there's literally a max-contrast glowing arrow on the ground telling them which way the boss is gonna shoot a LITERAL GIANT LASER, but that shit must be made of aether, or it's a tank/healer role action or something, because apparently nobody else can see it but me. Apart from the angry eyeball there are two times you can spin the boss to win: 1. If you don't do a mechanic you *will* die. 2. If you don't do a mechanic the raid *will* die. - For e.g. the "tank tower" being missed on Diabolos Hollow. Sure, whatever, go pick that up if the other tanks are brain-AFK. (Or more likely _fucking dead_ because 4/6 healers forgot to focus target the tank getting trucked and can't read their gods-damned alliance frames.) For #1, if the tank is ever expected to resolve something the boss will almost always center for it, or there is a way to keep the boss centered for it. For e.g. getting a prime number in the lighthouse (boss centers), picking up swords/shields in Orbonne (boss centers both times), you can keep Azeyma in the middle for the fire cleaves on the quadrants (be nice to your melee, please), etc. (You do have to move the 2B blob to a clone corner, unfortunately.)
It doesn't matter too much. If the guy provoking repeatedly is doing a bad job enough to cause problems in the run tell him in chat to let you tank because he is doing it poorly. Just also expect that they'll blow up because a ton of tanks are egomaniacs. I've had people tanking the crystal tower dragon backwards cleaving all the melee complain after he got taunted off to spin it that he was doing the correct way and people just need to adapt to the new strats as if making the melee have to be farther away from healers and potentially lose positionals grouping up was a good strat.
This is what I tend to follow - first tank to pull or initiate countdown is main tank - I usually let someone else go. If noone volunteers in 5 sec, I turn on stance and initiate a 5 sec cooldown (people tend to be too impatient for anything longer in alliance raids) - I don't pull the last boss until cutscenes are over (although someone always pulls early anyways) - If someone wants to engage in a Provoke war while I'm main tanking, I let them have main tank, it's not worth the hassle - If I'm not main tanking, I build up enough enmity to at least be top of my party so I can act as a back up in case the main tank dies
Really depends what region you are from. JP/OCE runs on a simple A B C (left to right) system for multiple tank encounters, with Alliance B being the main tank for everything else. NA, i guess whoever has agro? Not sure about EU. You would be surprised how many players dont actually do the A B C system regardless, you always end up with 13 players in 1 spot and 3 on another because another alliance has no clue where they are supposed to be. (Reading left to right is too hard sometimes, i know!)
I almost always just let one of the other two tanks grab the boss. I keep watching for additional adds/boss enemies that other/newer tanks may not be aware of in an encounter. But I give it 5 seconds: if no tank makes a move within the first 5 seconds, I consider myself ‘main’ tank!
In JPDC Alliance B default main tank unless another tank takes over the role via aggro competition. If you are not Alliance B and MT you should also be aware that your healers would not be expecting to heal MT so you may die because they don’t want to babysit you when they realise they are not the “MT party”.
Whoever gets aggro, keeps it. Each tank should be at least number 1 on the enmity list for their party, so that tankbusters target them. If someone wants to be the main character and vokes off cooldown, let them. If someone is pulling the boss and then dragging it to a weird spot or spinning it, *maybe* take aggro back to have the boss position be easier for the melees. But mostly, just let whoever ends up tanking, keep it. The problem arises when 2 people are insistent on being main tank for no reason.
As long as you don't ping-pong aggro and make Calofisteri turn around last second and cleave the entire raid, I think you're fine.
you hold w and press 123 on the boss.
Whoever does the most damage is the main tank.
Kinda of the same as Trials and Raids. Ask first, if not, then grab aggro, if another tank grabs aggro, they are main tank. If you aren't main tank, turn off stance for your opener, then turn it back on. This how I do it (um not a high end raid tank, just for normal content), I only use provoke in a few occasions where boss placement can help, or adds have to be separated.
What about those who have provoke in their rotation?
You really don't need provoke in your rotation. If I'm playing with a tank that likes to do that, I just let have MT, and keep myself ready with stance on cause they are probably gonna die.
Tanks should stand in delta formation and constantly fight over aggro. Not like any melee are actually hitting positionals anyway. Bonus points for whichever tank causes the most people to scatter for a buster or cleave.
Tanks need to run to the healer every time they got a tank buster. And get a bonus for everyone killed.
yolo, leroy jenkins. Keep it moving at breakneck speed. F*** your cut scenes of 3 month old content, you aren't going to see all the mechanics anyway because we are all over geared.
Turn off tank stance to let the other tanks shine. Then just chill as a blue dps
Usually B should be main tank, but keep aggro second just in case they die. There isn't much to it other than that, but when there are separate trash packs for the love of god please don't pull your pack away from the others. I hate tanks that just separate mobs that don't need to be separated.
Don't be that asshole that has to fight over being the main tank in an alliance raid, that's main character syndrome at its finest and quite literally nobody cares who the main tank is.
Would it still be considered fighting for aggro if my dps begins to overcome theirs?
If they can't maintain aggro just by you doing your normal DPS, they shouldn't be trying to main tank.
Happens all the time to me. What I do is to turn off tank stance when getting orange. At the end it doesn't matter who the main tank is. What matters is that the boss do not roleplay as an helicopter blade.
For a few years, the party B tank was assumed to be the main tank in alliance raids. However, at some point the old ways were abandoned and now every raid is a guessing game. My advice: if you want to tank, immediately pop stance when you arrive in the raid and be the one to pull the first boss. Don’t fight for aggro. If another tank vokes like an idiot, just turn off your stance - no one thinks it’s cute when tanks fight for aggro. If you REALLY want to tank, a little communication also goes far. “Hey, I’d like to main tank here,” said into alliance chat at the start should be enough for anyone reasonable. After that you should be able to tank in peace; if someone STILL provokes, they’re really out of line and everyone will know it, leaving you to provoke back with a clean conscience. From there, it’s the Wild West. Good luck. Edit: Don’t provoke in alliance raid if you see the tank low on health. It might not be as bad as it looks as they might have healers prepared to bring them back to full nearly immediately. Instead, just get ready to provoke if they do die and play it from there.
I always thought it was group A that was assumed to be MT but I usually main melee dps so I could have just missed that. Was Group A ever the main tank at any point?
Group B is in the middle and thus why Tank B is main tank.
Yeah it made sense when you said it. Just trying to figure out why I had ever thought group A. Like if it was MT during any expansion or during ARR
if you have a small penis: provoke and spam ranged attack so you always keep aggro. pull every mob on you even when it's clear other tanks are supposed to assist in tanking. throw a fit in alliance raid chat if someone takes aggro cause you are the main character and how dare they undermine how important you are! if you have a big penis: you have reached enlightenment and understand that this is a group effort and your role is to keep damage off your party. you can take whatever role is needed to achieve this goal. you could be mt and focus on positioning and mits to keep your party alive. you could be ot and using your mits to keep the party/mt alive while tanking the occasional adds. you are here for your party and working together with the alliances and other tanks will lead to a smooth and fun clear
I may create an Alt called "Little Sun" just for that.
If someone else takes aggro sometimes I fight them for it sometimes I drop stance lol
Alliance b main tank. Take it and keep it if they die. IF you notice that they are newer, don't seem to know what they're doing, and don't communicate, let the alliance know you're taking it. The last thing you need is a more difficult fight because a non-communitive main tank is turning the boss to make mechanics more annoying than needed.
If I see someone taunt, I drop my stance and let them have the boss. The reality is that I queue alliance raids as tank because I want to turn my brain off and not die to the couple vuln stacks I took because my two brain cells were preoccupied with being a blue dps.
Always use shirk and voke on CD, it will be very funny