The only thing that strikes me to add isn't specifically "off-tanking" so much as a general reminder for tanks and ranged phys: There are abilities susceptible to Interject and Head Graze, even in normal content, all the way in Endwalker. Put your interrupt on your cast bar and keep your eyes open for those abilities with flashing cast bars! A good main tank will handle this, but double the eyes on the task means double the odds it gets handled.
@_Snowflame Honestly as a new player this was the best advice iv gotten. Before I would have no idea what the fuck The boss is doing all the time, but now after making the Castbar 200% and smacking it in the middle of my screen, I know exactly what the boss is doing
Hey Wesk, I just wanted to give a shoutout to you. I just started playing a couple days ago and chose marauder/warrior and your video on them has helped me significantly. The fact that you're addressing new tanks in a video like this which seems more intentional for more experienced players STILL helps out a lot and is getting me prepared for the future. Breaking down everything for us newbies so that it's easier to understand is incredibly helpful, and your karaoke bits look like they're gonna be super helpful if I decide to make macros in the future. Thank you SO much man! I'm keeping these bookmarked for when the servers are back up as well. Take care bro!
Another tip for desciding who MTs on normal content: sometimes even trought you turned your stance first, the other tank might still turn theirs on or fight for aggro. It is important to be willing to turn yours off for the healers' and melees' sanity to just let them do it. But of course, as the guide mentioned, sometimes it's also important to know when you should have that aggro fight with your co-tank and stop them from cleaving the party.
for the silent tanking choice between MT and OT, i tend to do the opener and see who wins the top spot. if i'm 1st: well guess i'm MT. if i'm 2nd: guess ill turn stance of for a minute or so. works about 90% of the time. as for the times it doesn't work i just give up earlly to avoid the dancing.
For me it's "did the person turn their stance on and run to the north of the boss"? If yes, I just let them main tank. Or if we both did, did they run off when they saw I was holding aggro over them? Are they holding aggro over me? etc etc. Seems like a lot to think about but I typically default to just being whatever the need is.
Pro tanking tip: a good way to avoid "tank anxiety" (or tankxiety) is to adopt the "fuck it, we ball" mindset. Every rank can do that! Paladin? Fuck it, we shield. Warrior? Fuck if, we heal. Dark Knight? Fuck it, we are the Night. Gunbreaker? Fuck it, we have a gun.
I hear so many stories of terrible duty finder players. Like where are they. I play 8 hours a day and literally every single duty is as smooth as butter
On one hand it's massively frustrating seeing how bad some people are. On the other it's mostly not their fault. It's the game's fault for being really really bad at teaching most of its mechanics, responsibilities, and the concept of a damage rotation to new players. It just expects you to get it after teaching you next to nothing in the braindead easy normal content.
@@oEXTRA New to tanking, i feel this. I dont want to let people down but I am mostly left to figure stuff out on my own on youtube because of what you said
@@slimbingi1470 Tbh the more experience player also dont try to teach new player to avoid drama.. sure not all like this, but there a some moments like.. i was told im toxic because i say to a Darkknight Sprout he should use TBN (The blackest night very importent mitigation for the DRK) for Tankbuster or hard hitting mechanics. (it was btw a "Veteran" the sprout was thankfull)
Love to see a good guide on topics that are often brushed over in more general tanking guides. The one thing that's super niche I would add if instructing a friend on off-tanking is that sometimes a sprout wants to main tank a big cinematic fight like the last alexander raid, and letting them do that is great, but responsibility to use required tank limit breaks isn't MT (or OT) responsibility so you need to be ready to jump in to use the lb3 if you're the more experienced tank. Always makes me happy to see dark night sprouts the 5.3 trial for the first time, need their OT to limit break, and think about the sprout doing the same for the next msq journeyer.
Thank you so much for going into details on proper enmity management and stuff. Most tanking advice I've seen for 8mans tends to be "off-tanks don't turn on tank stance at all, unless the other tank dies or there's adds". Tanking is the least intuitive role for me, but ff14 tanking is very fun so this helped me a lot
Man i really needed this guide back when i started. Im all the way over in ultimates now but i remember way back when as a sprout when i didn't understand the rules for when two tanks were in an instance together. Its crazy honestly, all these tank guides on youtube and like none of them address it. Good content
Your guides are excellent as always! "I am a machine that turns videogames into guides" got me good lol A tip I've seen floating around in the past is to always expect to potentially main tank (I've seen my fair share of alliance tanks who were all expecting to OT and just stand there before the fight starts) and to be the first one to give up your MT aggro if the situation calls for it (like consistent enmity overtaking). When I tank, I'll always take a look at the other tanks' ilvl, since enmity will favour higher ilvl if both or more have tank stance on and are doing rotations correctly. Focus targeting the main tank in any casual duty also helps me keep an eye on what theyre up to! xx
There are two types of blue dps in alliance raids that kill the fun. 1. Keeps tank stance on, Provoke is part of their rotation, and they either stand with the earnest MT and "shares" tb's or is with the melee dps and "shares" cleaves with the whole raid. 2. Never puts on stance, may attempt to take adds when relevant, but always loses aggro to the top dps attacking the add.
Great video! Thank you for this. Highly informative, very detailed and lots of specific examples. Definitely something every player should watch, newer and older players alike.
Another excellent video guide, thanks for this. I'd say the biggest issue with multiple tanks is people not communicating, especially in alliance raids. Selfish players always want to be the one to tank the boss, despite it already being taken cared of by someone else. But that's just something we gotta live with.
Another good example of responsibilities an OT can have, albeit usually limited to Extreme and higher content: some line attacks deal greatly increased damage to the first one or two players hit by it, and you want the two tanks to be in front And yeah like you said, as OT I usually just turn my stance off sometime during the opener, and shirk if I'm about to rip aggro. I'd rather have my stance on as much as possible just in case of an accident.
Well, this is fucking psychic. I just off-tanked my first 'real' fight in Thordan (Unreal) the day you upload this video. Already was aware of *most* of the stuff mentioned, but getting my knowledge WeskCertified does feel great ^^
There's a big ant that spawns in the back of the room. If it gets close, it casts Regen on the boss. Healer runs up, aggros it, and that's it. Strat done. This way regen never happens, and the add barely hurts.
@@WeskAlber i use sleep as a healer or caster on that ant, some times i tell the party some other dont and get wake up, but is good to know this strat too🥰👍
@@WeskAlber It seems like everytime i try to do this in Cutter's Cry the rest of the party panics and starts running around because "Oh no! an add is loose!" lol
It was bigger back in the day. Now, with how much damage we do even in lower level duties Cutter's Cry, I typically see people just out damaging the regen. That strat, like many boss mechanics in CT (Phlegethon's bacon strips, Scylla's daybreak, Glasya Labolas' entire fight, Cloud's worms) have pretty much been power crept to the point you hardly see them.
Love you Wesk, you make amazing guides, and i watch your guides for things i dont even play, you taught me a lot of the things that were different from WoW 💜
Not an EU thing, we unfortunately also do north dragon strat on Primal and usually on Crystal too 😞 I'd love it center was mainstream here, but the one time I tried we nearly wiped. TBF, as long as not all the skellies explode at once, all the healers need to do is, like, 1 aoe heal at a time where nothing else is happening. They can handle it, I believe in them.
I once got the advice to have my tank stance active for a while even as off tank on bosses so that I can easily take over aggro if the MT messes up Confused some people with that, so I stopped doing it
I admit for a while I was wondering if the OT was trying to steal aggro from me in a minute when I watched people doing this. Eventually someone explained the concept to me and it made so much more sense. xD
Who would get confused by that? As long as you aren't close to taking over the lead, why would someone even care? Especially in newer content, when the buffs section is covered by like, 15 other buffs at any given moment lol. I'm usually more confused or annoyed when the other Tank is 7th in emnity lol.
@@thebananas6483 I mean I'm still doing msq and just hit the end of Shadowbringers. Doing this isn't really that necessary right now and most people don't really know about the trick anyway it seems
I typically turn stance on after opener. Low risk of peeling while still being number 2. If you turn your stance on pre-pull, then I can understand why someone would be confused. If you're doing it after the fight has started, then idk why someone would be confused. I'll use my own mindset and tendencies as an example. Pre-pull, if my co-tank turns on stance first, I leave mine off until after my opener. If I turn on stance first and then they turn theirs on, I anticipate that they intend to MT and turn mine off in response. If I am MT, I would expect the OT to be 2nd in aggro,
I wish we had a standardized marker in normal modes for tank swaps so they could happen more often. It'd be the easiest way to onboard new tanks to ex and above difficulty.
When I OT I position myself on the side (at one of the arrows if there are any) of a boss when there are no other mechanics for me to do. I hope I'm doing this right 😅
Oh cool! I suggested this video in your "how to be healed" video and I'm super happy to see this! It even cleared up some things a friend and I had been debating on. One thing I personally like to do when I'm on GNB in particular, especially if things are getting weird and RDM are helping to raise... throwing Heart of Corundum on a freshly raised player. It gives a burst heal as well as the shield, which is great when a RDM raises and the healers either aren't able to follow with a good heal or they're struggling and aren't able to. Bam, instant heal from the GNB.
Do you have any tips for dealing with the tankxiety of getting into new content? Whenever there's new mechanics getting introduced, I get nervous and start doing research because I hate sucking at stuff. For instance right now I'm watching this guide because I just unlocked alliance raids, and I watched a guide that broke everything down and it looks extremely complicated. Enough so that I couldn't just call it a day and queue, that I had to go and what another guide on how alliance raids work. Do you have any advice for this kind of thing? It's getting exhausting getting this worried about new content all the time.
I get used to it in other roles so I have an idea what to expect when I tank it. It's much easier to watch for tank specific cues when I'm already familiar with the boss behavior and special fight steps.
4:09 i have never in my life seen a party stack onto that Brawler beam. the last time i tanked it I pointed the beam at the party and got yelled at because they thought i was trying to kill them with it, so now I just invuln it all the time.
Tanking is my least played role. I enjoy playing all roles as they help me understand how to be better at the other/main roles. Thank you for this guide. Did not know about the icon thing in enemy list. Yes that is how noob I am at tanking so I don't usually volunteer for the MT role if I can avoid it. Thank you for explaining how to be a better OT. Sometimes I think OT can have a harder role as you need to be able to avoid damage like a DPS while running around grabbing adds or other heavy damage mechanics.
Either someone new who legitimately does not understand that there's sometimes more than 1 tank and they don't always have to the one getting smacked; or someone self centered who thinks of themselves as _the_ main tank and never learned how to work with others.
I'll do you one better: There's no real 'silent argument' over aggro, the other tank keeps their stance off and you *start killing CHAOS* but then... they stay with you. In front of the boss. And take the tether YOU were supposed to take, forcing you to sprint like mad through the group to save that other player from getting skewered, missing the tether and spinning the boss for no good reason. I tried shirking them and retiring to the backside of the boss like a good little PLD but they just... shirked me back after a moment. So they definitely knew *something* about tanking but choose going about off-tanking in a very counter-productive way. I am still baffled.
By the way, this is something absolutely nobody tells anyone, that I had to find out the hard way: If you die as a tank, whether you are MT or OT, as soon as you are in a relatively healthy state, you need to Provoke. This is very obvious if you were MT, but not if you were OT. If you were OT, the MT should be Provoking right afterwards, although Shirk also works if the MT isn't paying attention.
That one (or pair) in the EW Alliance Raid you referred to around 13:00, i believe there is SUPPOSED to be a tank swap on the the main one of the two, but unless you're doing a MINE run i don't think it does enough damage that it really requires it. But yeah, so MT + OT on one, and TT on the 2nd
This is great! It can be somewhat easy to think that an off-tank is just a blue DPS, so I'm glad a video like this is out there to shed more light on the topic. Since the end welcomed suggestions, how plausible would it be to have a discussion video like this on coordination between co-healers? Sure, a lot of ground has already been covered in the ABC's of healing and things like playing other jobs to master your main, but I'm curious if there's enough there on the intricacies of barriers that don't stack when you're randomly paired with a "similar" healer or contextually holding/using certain big cooldowns depending on what you see. Idk, I personally have more experience tanking than healing, and I'm a relatively newer player that only knows the game in a post-Endwalker world, so I'd just love to hear more insight on the nuances of healing from someone who's been here through the ages I missed. Thanks in advance for your consideration!
That's a bit of a tough one for many, many, MANY reasons. Even in a static environment, communications of plans can only come up mid-pull. The entire reason res macros exist is for communicating who you are raising (AND NOT TO MAKE A FUNNY JOKE). Even something that simple needs extra work that you can't really translate across duty to duty. If two Barrier healers get paired up, at most you can quick say "I'll focus on shielding" and that's it. Working with randos is hard.
@@WeskAlber When I get stuck with another shield healer I usually just assume they are going to play as normal and change how I play to be more oriented towards sending heals, and shielding errant/unlucky dps and the offtank. It can be a lot of extra work though cause I also have to pay extra attention to what cooldowns they are using so I can stagger mine with theirs. Though doing this does require some knowledge of how the other healing classes work, but I love healing and have tried to play all of the ones available to me (don't have endwalker) to 50 at least. I have no idea if this is *right* but it's been working ok so far...and its kind of a fun little challenge and probably a bit of a limit test for your class too.
Hi. I play shield healers in savage. Let me make it very easy for you: the only shields that don't stack are the GCD shields from the shield healers (Adloquium/Succor/Eukrasian Prognosis/Eukrasian Diagnosis). Literally everything else stacks with each other and doesn't overwrite (including AST's Neutral Sect shields). It's very rarely an issue because the only GCD shield that should ever be up is from the SCH, since the SGE has a high DPS-loss-to-heal-gain ratio from using Eukrasian Prognosis/Diagnosis in most situations, and the largest GCD shield SGE can produce (Zoe + Physis + Eukrasian Prognosis) is still far weaker than SCH's (Recitation + Protraction + Fey Illumination + Dissipation + Adloquium + Deployment Tactics). Granted, if you happen to have two shield healers you can do fun crazy shit like [Zoe + Fey Illumination + Physis + Pneuma (1089 potency AoE burst heal)] or [Krasis + Physis + Protraction + Recitation + Fey Illumination + Dissipation + Adloquium + Deployment Tactics (2070 potency AoE shield)].
@@Cherryblossoms110 Ooh thanks for this little nugget of info on shields, I don't get stuck with sages very often and they have a billion things going on so it's always been a bigger ??? for me when I do end up with them when on Scholar
Tanks are the only jobs I have left so I'm learning how to tank... Man the amount of questions I've had the moment there were two tanks cuz I legitimately didn't know what i was supposed to do if i was OT lol (The exception was the one time in World of Darkness where, as a DPS main, I knew where the 5 headed dragon should be to avoid death - and I had to provoke the boss cuz the MT either didn't see or was ignoring chat...they immediately took the boss back after so I guess they just REALLY wanted to MT) I'm still learning so this is a great help for me!
I can't think of anything myself seeing as you brought up the mitigating mt and reprisal already. Anything I could say would just be for harder content and would be more about getting comfortable with how close you are to the boss pre pull and getting used to the reafy check and countdown menus. This is a really good video and I wish I could have watched something like this before I started doing harder content as a tank.
As OT for trials, I typically just turn my stance on after opener. If my damage is much greater than the other tank that I risk ripping aggro, just shirk and turn stance off.
rules I follow in 8-man content as a tank: 1. whoever turns stance on first is the main tank, I would typically turn mine on first but if the cotank ALSO turns theirs on before the pull starts then I hand them the MT I don't wanna deal with the dance; there are also specific fights where I prefer to OT cuz I've seen too many OTs mess up a mechanic they should be doing either leading to a wipe or giving more burden to the other tank and the healers 2. I'm a PLD main and if the other tank is a WAR then I wait till the barrier goes down to see if they will MT or not; they got more tools to top themselves up, less work for healers and it's easier for me to position my wings if needed 3. When I'm the offtank I would turn my stance on AFTER my whole opener and stand on the flank away from the party and away from the tank cleaves; you never know when that MT will have a lapse on their judgement and die all of a sudden, at least no DPS gets punched by the boss on the face if the MT dies, but don't forget to Shirk if you're about to strip away the aggro from a healthy MT 4. Never fight for the aggro; if they also turn their stance on before the pull then I'll turn mine off, if they provoke it off me without the need of a tank swap then they are the MT now, I'd rather make it easier for the rest of the party than fight for the aggro cuz of my pride I've had other tanks question me for turning my stance on after openers some of them die and I get to prove my point, otherwise the duty just proceeds smoothly with proper aggro management and the only thing that gets damaged is probably their fragile ego edit: 1 thing to add about Alliance Raids, in case someone from the JP Data Centers is reading, the silent rule of main tanking in JP Data Centers is that Alliance B tank is the main tank
I've had a mentor yell at me for turning off tank stance after a while, being the OT. I noticed I was about to take all of the aggro so I turned it off
As in like all caps? Either way yeah no, what I said here is very much the ideal. Long as you're keeping a safe 2nd, you're good. And then go pick up adds.
With regards to Alliance raids, especially the early ones, situation awareness is king. This room has 3 groups of adds; perhaps each of the the 3 tanks should grab one. Adds have joined the boss arena and I'm not presently being slapped; perhaps I should grab those guys. A tether formed between these 2 enemies when they got close to each other; I should probably try to break that. I'd also add that, in situations where all 3 tanks need to hold something away from each other or 3 areas of the arena are about to be locked with an add inside, you typically separate left to right parties A, B, and C. Sometimes people put markers down, but if they don't just remember that A goes left, B center/north, and C right.
for the one pot boss in labyrinth the alliance A tank was afk out of the arena so i had to aggro the boss and just hold on to him without doing damage otherwise he would target the A tank and walk out of the arena when the fight started
Just a fact some people might find Interesting. On JP they have some silent rules for alliance raids where the B tank is the default main tank. And if there are two bosses, such as tower 2 Boss, the A tank and C tank each take a boss where the B tank becomes the off tank.
Stop I’d give (and it maybe gets said in the video); don’t sit in your healing cool-downs. As a paladin you have Intervention which gives a target mitigation and a heal. If you’re sitting on 100 gauge and a dps is clipped with an aoe, you can freely use this just for the heal. Warrior has nascent flash and gunbreaker has Aurora which all act in the same way. Don’t just over cap your job gauge, use it! And that’s a tip for all classes (unless you’re stacking for a burst window of course!)
I really hate main tanking, but I don't mind being off tank. I normally play chicken untill the other tank turns on their stance, wait about a minute or so then stance and get second aggro. This came up in Alex Arm fight, as soon as I hit 2nd the MT died, so I ended up being the MT anyways. Turns out using your mits actually helps, shocking.
LoL... broken rules... there is no broken rules. All rules apply, and valid. It only means, Tanks Adjust! Different fight, different mechanics, different players,... all in all, as a vet tank, you'll have to adjust accordingly. The ability to "read" the fight is one thing all main tanks have to develop. For new tanks though, this guide is an excellent guide. Heed well, for I have great respect for Wesk guide.👍
Maybe it's different with which DC you play on, I play on Elemental, but in Alliance raids, it seems the unspoken rule of who is MT is always Alliance B, since they are the middle and front most group in the starting spawn of most Alliance raids.
When I tank as GNB, I will sometimes wordlessly defer MT to the other by using Heart of Stone/Corundum on them, as a sort of like "I got your back" sorta thing; considering I also play SGE quite often and started playing as WHM, I'm quite used to flicking to the tank to use an oGCD But yeah, tanks need to use their abilities to help the other tank. I'm okay with being MT if they don't want to, but I generally don't prefer it, and it's nice to receive a Clemency or TBN if I'm NT
I’ve run into way to many tanks recently that are constantly moving or even spinning the boss so the stance stays on. Being in BiS usually lets me maintain threat unless it’s provoke on cd person. Laughed at the last one that does that is convinced he’s going to be one of the first to clear the Dawntrail ultimate. Not if you’re doing all of the above buddy.
I do hope that more content gets specific jobs for off-tanks in Dawntrail, it can be a little boring in a lot of content if you're stuck just 1 2 3'ing with little to worry about.
Newbie here. Question. How do you keep tank stance on ps5? Every time I enter dungeons, I let the other players know I’m a newbie. They always give me good advice. One of them advice is keeping my tank stance on. But I don’t know how. I always gotta keep clicking so it doesn’t turn off. Your advice will be helpful.
I feel like this video explains pretty well why people don't understand what off-tanks are supposed to do and often treat it as "Blue DPS". Because the answer to "what does an off-tank do" is "every single fight in the game has a different answer to that question, and you probably won't know unless someone tells you". Unless someone explains what I'm supposed to be doing as an off-tank, or I already know the fight (because someone explained it to me previously), I usually just put myself at #2 in enmity and hope that's good enough. Personally I feel like most mechanics that are more complicated than "don't stand in the shape" are near-impossible to figure out the first time you see them if you don't have someone explaining them to you.
Well, no. I laid out pretty well general tendencies such as Adds, but did mention that some fights will have unique aspects. It's about awareness of there being exceptions rather than needing to know every exceptions.
@@WeskAlber I guess to rephrase in a slightly less dramatic way. In every fight the main tank gets to #2 in enmity, and they help with handling adds or split bosses. But it seems like anything beyond that is pretty hard to know or expect unless you already know the fight. Like most people are never going to notice a tank swap moment unless they've had it explained to them ahead of time. Most people aren't going to know that an unmarked split tankbuster or split cleave is supposed to be split unless someone tells them that. So until you know the fight, it doesn't seem like there's much you can do other than do the basic stuff and hope you're not needed for much else. Obviously if you're in a group of people you know they can explain things to you (and that's how I've gotten through most content the first time) but if you're a new player in a random group you're gonna have no clue. And frankly for older content like the HW raids you mentioned, a lot of *experienced* players don't even know the mechanics because you can survive without doing them. There's a bunch of Alliance Raid fights that I still don't really understand after half a dozen runs because the rest of the group kills the boss regardless of what I'm doing. I also might just be biased because I'm still in MSQ and not yet finished with Shadowbringers, so all of my raid experience and most of my Trial experience comes from ARR/HW/SB where a lot of things aren't marked or communicated very well for first-time players. Really my main complaint here is just that I feel like the game doesn't do a very good job of communicating new mechanics to people who haven't seen them, even in normal content.
I realized recently that if i mess and up and get revived (both as MT and OT really) it takes a really long while for me to go up the enmity list, though i don't actually understand if i should be using provoke in such situations or not.
If you're in 8 man or higher content, just let the other tank keep the aggro. If you're in a dungeon, provoke immediately so your healers or DPS don't get clapped.
It really depends on what's happening in the fight, so you kinda have to learn case-by-case. Provoke during a cast and shirk the aggro back before the cast finishes is 95% of the time a safe bet that leaves the other guy tanking and doesn't spin the boss. If a mechanic is coming up really soon that targets the first and second-place hate party members, you definitely need to provoke. If that same mechanic is like a minute out, tank stance by itself should be enough to get you up to second place in time. Any other situation, you can probably just take over as OT for the rest of the fight.
I weave my stance in my opener, too. Though I tend to save Shirk for whenever the enmity icon turns orange, since that indicates that I'm risking taking over.
I've seen two orbs make it still. Not this run but, that's about how it's always been. The point is less THIS MECH and more "these mechS." Like I say, no point listing them all, this is just example.
Like the A1 bosses, separating them is correct, but the damage up they get from tethering is negligible. That they die within seconds of each other is all that matters. You don't want to ignore it when bosses tether in general though, that's just one specific example of it no longer mattering.
*Turns on stance after a min has past but soon overtakes MT in enmity........* The amount of times this has happened to me really makes me wonder wtf were those MTs doing.
To be fair, it's your responsibility as on Off Tank to make sure you're not overtaking the enmity lead. Especially if you're say, a max level GNB and your MT is a lower iLvl PLD.
It easily happens when the main tank is new and isn't doing their damage rotation properly. I'm actually in a min ilvl static right now with a new main tank and i have to be very careful with my rotation and watch that aggro list like a hawk.
@@thebananas6483 Yeah, but it's also the MT's responsibility to... press buttons. If they're doing even passable damage, it should really take you more than 30s to pass them on aggro, even if you outgear them heavily.
For my silent rule of who’s who. As a gunbreaker I expect the warrior maybe paladin to MT. Primarily warriors, but if they don’t turn on the stance the moment we’re let lose then screw it we ball Tank stance on! Not on higher end content yet but I always research my trials and dungeons at least once to what to expect and they’re like 3-5 min videos and honestly you really don’t need them cause #healeradjust but for real healers has great tools to save your rear - as an ex healer I have an understanding what they’re capable of. I just apologize or even just say my thx to healers.
My first main tank raid experience was LotA, i was Dark Knight abd still learning super nervous because again, first time tanking in a raid. I mentioned this in chat and neither of the other tanks replied. For the rest if the raid they both kinda just... Fucked off? Didn't help me so i was forced to MT even though i didn't know what i was doing, died multiple times, caused a wipe all while these two max level btw tanks did Nothing It was so miserable. Multiple people agreed with me after the raid (some gave me headpats). Probably one of the worst expiriences ive had in the game, second to trying to heal Keeper of the Lake while on extremely laggy internet where i ragequit and haven't picked up healing since
That is rather unfortunate. I might assume that both of the other tanks were new as well. At least I hope veterans aren't acting like that. In which case, kudos for being the one to step up in that situation. As to your other story, do you always have some lag, or was it an exceptional occurrence? If it _was_ a random lag spike and not a constant issue, I'd encourage you to give it another go. Ya know, if that's something you want and all.
I'm odd but off tank feels like a poor term for it. Sub tank always is what I call it. One cause substitute tank makes more sense and two well as a big Capcom and more so Megaman X and Zero fan sub tanks are key to some pretty hard fights when new. Great vid as always and wow I totally never knew Double Rocket punch was a tank stack and I feel like a no duh now.
Not really. Especially when you get into high end, healers have a pretty equal share of the healing overall. They might get specific mechs like Searing Wind from Ifrit but...
I'd like a guide on criterion or variant dungeons, I joined a pf thinking it was just another VD clear but instead got a crash course in Savage level raiding haha😅
@@WeskAlber oh I know that *now*, but when I joined them initially I thought they were the same lol. I meant more that a guide on criterion dungeon strats would be cool, the Mount Rokkon one was insanely fun but hard to learn completely blind.
Tbh i never understand this trouble with "OffTanking" when i go savage its always something like "MT or OT" "dont care" "me either" Some people try to explain me with something like "Yeah but im not feeling like the Hero when im not the MT!" what is for me one of the dumb things i ever heard.
"There is an unspoken rule about Main tank." Me: Please not the same DRK/WAR mt PLD/GNB ot bs "Whiever hits their button first is MT" My MT PLD smile 😊
TBF when I play PLD as OT I *like* just being a mountain of mitigation for both the group and my tank buddy. Just hang out behind the boss in front of the group, no need to move for Wings, throw your Interventions on the MT before you cap on ressources, it's the healer gameplay with less of the responsibility. But, when the other tank chickens out? I'll gladly live out my Main Protagonist dreams. Nothing gives me greater satisfaction than leaving a DRK in the dust aggro-wise. Oh you just Taunted because *now* you wanna be the main character? Give it 10s and that boss will be mine again and I wont have to do anything extra for that either :3 Dick-measuring between tanks can get tiring for everyone involved but there are days I feel just petty enough for it to be fun.
@@annatipperina345 I just want my PLD dots back, it was great the mitigation buff we recieved but where's my funny rotation gone? NGL now that PLD is just GNB- if I have to tank I play WAR but it's not something I seek out anymore.
in normal, it's fine. just turn on tank stance and provoke if mt dies. it occasionally happens and you can have a good laugh if the dps gets smacked. bad tank? leave mt alone. everyone adjust. That last clip. A9N. Alexander the eyes of the creator normal. Now this is a killer. The normal content that occasionally get voted abandon. Off tank or main tank doesn't matter. Please bring faust to southeast platform. It doesn't matter if you kill him fast. The boss will drop all the floor before his defense buff falls off.
That last one is just objectively incorrect. Faust is what gives the defense buff. If you kill fast and get him on the 3rd platform, you get some extra DPS time. Doesn't matter in Normals, but that's just a factually untrue statement.
I feel like ive been seeing a lot more players just...not knowing what they are doing lately, mainly tanks and healers but do see dps as well. Seeing way more tanks single pulling and not aoe, healers using their useless heals once they get their better ones, dps only using aoe/ranged attacks against single targets and bosses. And if i say something its either ignored or im told to shut up. I just dont commend people anymore unless they go out of their way to do extra. And its not just sprouts, i see people with all roles maxed out or even just all tanks at 90 still doing these things
Kinda related but the game has a bit of toxic positivity problem. I recently healed a run of Sastasha where the tank had even said they were new and asked for guidance. I offered advice, but by the end he was still having issues keeping aggro on groups. I was about to tell him to just spam aoe on any groups, but both dps told him he did a great job and I refrained for fear of someone starting something, which I regret. All they did was reinforce bad play.
@@RockR277 yeaaaaa...something needs to change in the community. people are telling others they are doing good when in reality they arent which reinforces the new players mindset into 'hey im doing a good job, im going to keep doing that!'. or people just dont say anything because they dont want to get banned due to how sensitive this community is. with how the world is today, people dont like negativity, being told what to do. yet look how miserable the world has been getting because people arent told off that they are straight up wrong, or disciplined when they were children. the younger generation has no respect for anything nowadays because they were never physically slapped on the ass to make them learn at a young age
Hey I'm the MT at 15:02! 🤯 I'm not really familiar with tank swaps; this whole time I thought the concussion thing was some sort of special tankbuster, so when you took that last hit from Twinkledinks for me, I remember thinking, oh how nice of you! 🥹 (You can also see me pop a panic invuln afterwards lol) Thanks for such an informative video! Maybe we'll run into each other again 😂
the amount of times the MT dies and boss pimp slappin healer and dps HP bars left and right while OT just sits in corner widdlin their thumbs as party chat says "VOKE BOSS" and we wipe
"For I am a machine that turns videogames into guides" cracked me up inside. May you function for a long time, friend!
The only thing that strikes me to add isn't specifically "off-tanking" so much as a general reminder for tanks and ranged phys:
There are abilities susceptible to Interject and Head Graze, even in normal content, all the way in Endwalker. Put your interrupt on your cast bar and keep your eyes open for those abilities with flashing cast bars! A good main tank will handle this, but double the eyes on the task means double the odds it gets handled.
Everyone globally should open their HUD Editor and make their target cast bars huge.
Right now.
@_Snowflame Honestly as a new player this was the best advice iv gotten.
Before I would have no idea what the fuck The boss is doing all the time, but now after making the Castbar 200% and smacking it in the middle of my screen, I know exactly what the boss is doing
Hey Wesk, I just wanted to give a shoutout to you. I just started playing a couple days ago and chose marauder/warrior and your video on them has helped me significantly. The fact that you're addressing new tanks in a video like this which seems more intentional for more experienced players STILL helps out a lot and is getting me prepared for the future. Breaking down everything for us newbies so that it's easier to understand is incredibly helpful, and your karaoke bits look like they're gonna be super helpful if I decide to make macros in the future. Thank you SO much man! I'm keeping these bookmarked for when the servers are back up as well. Take care bro!
Another tip for desciding who MTs on normal content: sometimes even trought you turned your stance first, the other tank might still turn theirs on or fight for aggro. It is important to be willing to turn yours off for the healers' and melees' sanity to just let them do it. But of course, as the guide mentioned, sometimes it's also important to know when you should have that aggro fight with your co-tank and stop them from cleaving the party.
as a sprout i thank you for this video, ive been looking for a video about this
for the silent tanking choice between MT and OT, i tend to do the opener and see who wins the top spot.
if i'm 1st: well guess i'm MT.
if i'm 2nd: guess ill turn stance of for a minute or so.
works about 90% of the time.
as for the times it doesn't work i just give up earlly to avoid the dancing.
That awkward moment when the co tank pulled with provoke and you still get aggro...
But the dancing makes it more fun!
For me it's "did the person turn their stance on and run to the north of the boss"? If yes, I just let them main tank. Or if we both did, did they run off when they saw I was holding aggro over them? Are they holding aggro over me? etc etc. Seems like a lot to think about but I typically default to just being whatever the need is.
Pro tanking tip: a good way to avoid "tank anxiety" (or tankxiety) is to adopt the "fuck it, we ball" mindset. Every rank can do that! Paladin? Fuck it, we shield. Warrior? Fuck if, we heal. Dark Knight? Fuck it, we are the Night. Gunbreaker? Fuck it, we have a gun.
The amount of bad tanks I've been running with in DFs is staggering and there's no reason for it. Thanks for doing what you do, Wesk.
I hear so many stories of terrible duty finder players. Like where are they. I play 8 hours a day and literally every single duty is as smooth as butter
@@aiellamori They're getting a tad more common now.
On one hand it's massively frustrating seeing how bad some people are. On the other it's mostly not their fault. It's the game's fault for being really really bad at teaching most of its mechanics, responsibilities, and the concept of a damage rotation to new players. It just expects you to get it after teaching you next to nothing in the braindead easy normal content.
@@oEXTRA New to tanking, i feel this. I dont want to let people down but I am mostly left to figure stuff out on my own on youtube because of what you said
@@slimbingi1470 Tbh the more experience player also dont try to teach new player to avoid drama.. sure not all like this, but there a some moments like.. i was told im toxic because i say to a Darkknight Sprout he should use TBN (The blackest night very importent mitigation for the DRK) for Tankbuster or hard hitting mechanics. (it was btw a "Veteran" the sprout was thankfull)
Love to see a good guide on topics that are often brushed over in more general tanking guides. The one thing that's super niche I would add if instructing a friend on off-tanking is that sometimes a sprout wants to main tank a big cinematic fight like the last alexander raid, and letting them do that is great, but responsibility to use required tank limit breaks isn't MT (or OT) responsibility so you need to be ready to jump in to use the lb3 if you're the more experienced tank.
Always makes me happy to see dark night sprouts the 5.3 trial for the first time, need their OT to limit break, and think about the sprout doing the same for the next msq journeyer.
Thank you so much for going into details on proper enmity management and stuff. Most tanking advice I've seen for 8mans tends to be "off-tanks don't turn on tank stance at all, unless the other tank dies or there's adds". Tanking is the least intuitive role for me, but ff14 tanking is very fun so this helped me a lot
Man i really needed this guide back when i started. Im all the way over in ultimates now but i remember way back when as a sprout when i didn't understand the rules for when two tanks were in an instance together. Its crazy honestly, all these tank guides on youtube and like none of them address it. Good content
Your guides are excellent as always! "I am a machine that turns videogames into guides" got me good lol
A tip I've seen floating around in the past is to always expect to potentially main tank (I've seen my fair share of alliance tanks who were all expecting to OT and just stand there before the fight starts) and to be the first one to give up your MT aggro if the situation calls for it (like consistent enmity overtaking).
When I tank, I'll always take a look at the other tanks' ilvl, since enmity will favour higher ilvl if both or more have tank stance on and are doing rotations correctly. Focus targeting the main tank in any casual duty also helps me keep an eye on what theyre up to! xx
Fantastic guide! This is what I was looking for last year and there wasn't anything. Thank you so much for your amazing guides!
There are two types of blue dps in alliance raids that kill the fun.
1. Keeps tank stance on, Provoke is part of their rotation, and they either stand with the earnest MT and "shares" tb's or is with the melee dps and "shares" cleaves with the whole raid.
2. Never puts on stance, may attempt to take adds when relevant, but always loses aggro to the top dps attacking the add.
Love it. Tons of great little stuff in here. Great guide, simple, to the point. Thanks as always, Wesk!
Great video! Thank you for this. Highly informative, very detailed and lots of specific examples. Definitely something every player should watch, newer and older players alike.
Another excellent video guide, thanks for this. I'd say the biggest issue with multiple tanks is people not communicating, especially in alliance raids. Selfish players always want to be the one to tank the boss, despite it already being taken cared of by someone else. But that's just something we gotta live with.
You're sounding better:-).
'the code is more what you might call, guidelines.'
Another good example of responsibilities an OT can have, albeit usually limited to Extreme and higher content: some line attacks deal greatly increased damage to the first one or two players hit by it, and you want the two tanks to be in front
And yeah like you said, as OT I usually just turn my stance off sometime during the opener, and shirk if I'm about to rip aggro. I'd rather have my stance on as much as possible just in case of an accident.
Oh right, Wild Charges. I guess that falls under the A9 kinda thing but true.
You're lying, 24 man tanking usually consists of the 3 tanks keeping their Provokes on cooldown trying to one up each other.
Well, this is fucking psychic. I just off-tanked my first 'real' fight in Thordan (Unreal) the day you upload this video. Already was aware of *most* of the stuff mentioned, but getting my knowledge WeskCertified does feel great ^^
Thank you for making this! I'm always so confused in alliance raids when I play tank
Can you elaborate on the healer tank strat in cutters cry? I've never heard of that before O_O
There's a big ant that spawns in the back of the room. If it gets close, it casts Regen on the boss.
Healer runs up, aggros it, and that's it. Strat done. This way regen never happens, and the add barely hurts.
@@WeskAlber Thanks for sharing! This'll be a nice trick to show off while doing leveling roulettes.
@@WeskAlber i use sleep as a healer or caster on that ant, some times i tell the party some other dont and get wake up, but is good to know this strat too🥰👍
@@WeskAlber It seems like everytime i try to do this in Cutter's Cry the rest of the party panics and starts running around because "Oh no! an add is loose!" lol
It was bigger back in the day. Now, with how much damage we do even in lower level duties Cutter's Cry, I typically see people just out damaging the regen. That strat, like many boss mechanics in CT (Phlegethon's bacon strips, Scylla's daybreak, Glasya Labolas' entire fight, Cloud's worms) have pretty much been power crept to the point you hardly see them.
Love you Wesk, you make amazing guides, and i watch your guides for things i dont even play, you taught me a lot of the things that were different from WoW 💜
My EU player urge of shouting "pull the dragon north" is tingling. xD
Never! Middle Dragon is factually and morally correct!
@@WeskAlber You just want to be mean to your healers in NA! :P
They're gonna have to heal the damage anyway!
@@Sketchbloppthere’s no difference lol
Not an EU thing, we unfortunately also do north dragon strat on Primal and usually on Crystal too 😞 I'd love it center was mainstream here, but the one time I tried we nearly wiped.
TBF, as long as not all the skellies explode at once, all the healers need to do is, like, 1 aoe heal at a time where nothing else is happening. They can handle it, I believe in them.
I once got the advice to have my tank stance active for a while even as off tank on bosses so that I can easily take over aggro if the MT messes up
Confused some people with that, so I stopped doing it
I admit for a while I was wondering if the OT was trying to steal aggro from me in a minute when I watched people doing this. Eventually someone explained the concept to me and it made so much more sense. xD
Who would get confused by that? As long as you aren't close to taking over the lead, why would someone even care? Especially in newer content, when the buffs section is covered by like, 15 other buffs at any given moment lol. I'm usually more confused or annoyed when the other Tank is 7th in emnity lol.
@@thebananas6483 I mean I'm still doing msq and just hit the end of Shadowbringers. Doing this isn't really that necessary right now and most people don't really know about the trick anyway it seems
I typically turn stance on after opener. Low risk of peeling while still being number 2. If you turn your stance on pre-pull, then I can understand why someone would be confused. If you're doing it after the fight has started, then idk why someone would be confused.
I'll use my own mindset and tendencies as an example. Pre-pull, if my co-tank turns on stance first, I leave mine off until after my opener. If I turn on stance first and then they turn theirs on, I anticipate that they intend to MT and turn mine off in response. If I am MT, I would expect the OT to be 2nd in aggro,
I wish we had a standardized marker in normal modes for tank swaps so they could happen more often. It'd be the easiest way to onboard new tanks to ex and above difficulty.
Just completed msq and starting the harder content and this is real useful, thanks
When I OT I position myself on the side (at one of the arrows if there are any) of a boss when there are no other mechanics for me to do. I hope I'm doing this right 😅
Oh cool! I suggested this video in your "how to be healed" video and I'm super happy to see this! It even cleared up some things a friend and I had been debating on.
One thing I personally like to do when I'm on GNB in particular, especially if things are getting weird and RDM are helping to raise... throwing Heart of Corundum on a freshly raised player. It gives a burst heal as well as the shield, which is great when a RDM raises and the healers either aren't able to follow with a good heal or they're struggling and aren't able to. Bam, instant heal from the GNB.
Do you have any tips for dealing with the tankxiety of getting into new content? Whenever there's new mechanics getting introduced, I get nervous and start doing research because I hate sucking at stuff.
For instance right now I'm watching this guide because I just unlocked alliance raids, and I watched a guide that broke everything down and it looks extremely complicated. Enough so that I couldn't just call it a day and queue, that I had to go and what another guide on how alliance raids work.
Do you have any advice for this kind of thing? It's getting exhausting getting this worried about new content all the time.
I get used to it in other roles so I have an idea what to expect when I tank it. It's much easier to watch for tank specific cues when I'm already familiar with the boss behavior and special fight steps.
Thanks for the guides! They help a lot!
4:09 i have never in my life seen a party stack onto that Brawler beam. the last time i tanked it I pointed the beam at the party and got yelled at because they thought i was trying to kill them with it, so now I just invuln it all the time.
Yeah... I just do the mech and then go "it's ok to be wrong, two beams is a stack, one is a buster"
Tanking is my least played role. I enjoy playing all roles as they help me understand how to be better at the other/main roles. Thank you for this guide. Did not know about the icon thing in enemy list. Yes that is how noob I am at tanking so I don't usually volunteer for the MT role if I can avoid it. Thank you for explaining how to be a better OT. Sometimes I think OT can have a harder role as you need to be able to avoid damage like a DPS while running around grabbing adds or other heavy damage mechanics.
my favorite part is when i've already pulled, tank stance on and all, and the ot suddenly turns theirs on too and vokes. why. why?
Especially if you've waited to see if they wanted to mt first and they didn't turn stance on or say anything.
Either someone new who legitimately does not understand that there's sometimes more than 1 tank and they don't always have to the one getting smacked; or someone self centered who thinks of themselves as _the_ main tank and never learned how to work with others.
I'll do you one better: There's no real 'silent argument' over aggro, the other tank keeps their stance off and you *start killing CHAOS* but then... they stay with you. In front of the boss. And take the tether YOU were supposed to take, forcing you to sprint like mad through the group to save that other player from getting skewered, missing the tether and spinning the boss for no good reason. I tried shirking them and retiring to the backside of the boss like a good little PLD but they just... shirked me back after a moment. So they definitely knew *something* about tanking but choose going about off-tanking in a very counter-productive way. I am still baffled.
By the way, this is something absolutely nobody tells anyone, that I had to find out the hard way:
If you die as a tank, whether you are MT or OT, as soon as you are in a relatively healthy state, you need to Provoke.
This is very obvious if you were MT, but not if you were OT. If you were OT, the MT should be Provoking right afterwards, although Shirk also works if the MT isn't paying attention.
That one (or pair) in the EW Alliance Raid you referred to around 13:00, i believe there is SUPPOSED to be a tank swap on the the main one of the two, but unless you're doing a MINE run i don't think it does enough damage that it really requires it. But yeah, so MT + OT on one, and TT on the 2nd
One tip to note when tanking adds in 8/24man raids: tank them away from each other when they tether to each other (usually too close or something)
This is great! It can be somewhat easy to think that an off-tank is just a blue DPS, so I'm glad a video like this is out there to shed more light on the topic.
Since the end welcomed suggestions, how plausible would it be to have a discussion video like this on coordination between co-healers? Sure, a lot of ground has already been covered in the ABC's of healing and things like playing other jobs to master your main, but I'm curious if there's enough there on the intricacies of barriers that don't stack when you're randomly paired with a "similar" healer or contextually holding/using certain big cooldowns depending on what you see. Idk, I personally have more experience tanking than healing, and I'm a relatively newer player that only knows the game in a post-Endwalker world, so I'd just love to hear more insight on the nuances of healing from someone who's been here through the ages I missed. Thanks in advance for your consideration!
That's a bit of a tough one for many, many, MANY reasons. Even in a static environment, communications of plans can only come up mid-pull. The entire reason res macros exist is for communicating who you are raising (AND NOT TO MAKE A FUNNY JOKE). Even something that simple needs extra work that you can't really translate across duty to duty.
If two Barrier healers get paired up, at most you can quick say "I'll focus on shielding" and that's it. Working with randos is hard.
@@WeskAlber When I get stuck with another shield healer I usually just assume they are going to play as normal and change how I play to be more oriented towards sending heals, and shielding errant/unlucky dps and the offtank. It can be a lot of extra work though cause I also have to pay extra attention to what cooldowns they are using so I can stagger mine with theirs. Though doing this does require some knowledge of how the other healing classes work, but I love healing and have tried to play all of the ones available to me (don't have endwalker) to 50 at least. I have no idea if this is *right* but it's been working ok so far...and its kind of a fun little challenge and probably a bit of a limit test for your class too.
Hi. I play shield healers in savage. Let me make it very easy for you: the only shields that don't stack are the GCD shields from the shield healers (Adloquium/Succor/Eukrasian Prognosis/Eukrasian Diagnosis). Literally everything else stacks with each other and doesn't overwrite (including AST's Neutral Sect shields).
It's very rarely an issue because the only GCD shield that should ever be up is from the SCH, since the SGE has a high DPS-loss-to-heal-gain ratio from using Eukrasian Prognosis/Diagnosis in most situations, and the largest GCD shield SGE can produce (Zoe + Physis + Eukrasian Prognosis) is still far weaker than SCH's (Recitation + Protraction + Fey Illumination + Dissipation + Adloquium + Deployment Tactics).
Granted, if you happen to have two shield healers you can do fun crazy shit like [Zoe + Fey Illumination + Physis + Pneuma (1089 potency AoE burst heal)] or [Krasis + Physis + Protraction + Recitation + Fey Illumination + Dissipation + Adloquium + Deployment Tactics (2070 potency AoE shield)].
@@Cherryblossoms110 Ooh thanks for this little nugget of info on shields, I don't get stuck with sages very often and they have a billion things going on so it's always been a bigger ??? for me when I do end up with them when on Scholar
Tanks are the only jobs I have left so I'm learning how to tank...
Man the amount of questions I've had the moment there were two tanks cuz I legitimately didn't know what i was supposed to do if i was OT lol
(The exception was the one time in World of Darkness where, as a DPS main, I knew where the 5 headed dragon should be to avoid death - and I had to provoke the boss cuz the MT either didn't see or was ignoring chat...they immediately took the boss back after so I guess they just REALLY wanted to MT)
I'm still learning so this is a great help for me!
I can't think of anything myself seeing as you brought up the mitigating mt and reprisal already. Anything I could say would just be for harder content and would be more about getting comfortable with how close you are to the boss pre pull and getting used to the reafy check and countdown menus. This is a really good video and I wish I could have watched something like this before I started doing harder content as a tank.
As OT for trials, I typically just turn my stance on after opener. If my damage is much greater than the other tank that I risk ripping aggro, just shirk and turn stance off.
Much needed guide. off tanking is fun and people should do more and properly.
rules I follow in 8-man content as a tank:
1. whoever turns stance on first is the main tank, I would typically turn mine on first but if the cotank ALSO turns theirs on before the pull starts then I hand them the MT I don't wanna deal with the dance; there are also specific fights where I prefer to OT cuz I've seen too many OTs mess up a mechanic they should be doing either leading to a wipe or giving more burden to the other tank and the healers
2. I'm a PLD main and if the other tank is a WAR then I wait till the barrier goes down to see if they will MT or not; they got more tools to top themselves up, less work for healers and it's easier for me to position my wings if needed
3. When I'm the offtank I would turn my stance on AFTER my whole opener and stand on the flank away from the party and away from the tank cleaves; you never know when that MT will have a lapse on their judgement and die all of a sudden, at least no DPS gets punched by the boss on the face if the MT dies, but don't forget to Shirk if you're about to strip away the aggro from a healthy MT
4. Never fight for the aggro; if they also turn their stance on before the pull then I'll turn mine off, if they provoke it off me without the need of a tank swap then they are the MT now, I'd rather make it easier for the rest of the party than fight for the aggro cuz of my pride
I've had other tanks question me for turning my stance on after openers some of them die and I get to prove my point, otherwise the duty just proceeds smoothly with proper aggro management and the only thing that gets damaged is probably their fragile ego
edit: 1 thing to add about Alliance Raids, in case someone from the JP Data Centers is reading, the silent rule of main tanking in JP Data Centers is that Alliance B tank is the main tank
I've had a mentor yell at me for turning off tank stance after a while, being the OT. I noticed I was about to take all of the aggro so I turned it off
As in like all caps? Either way yeah no, what I said here is very much the ideal. Long as you're keeping a safe 2nd, you're good. And then go pick up adds.
really helpful stuff, thank you!
With regards to Alliance raids, especially the early ones, situation awareness is king.
This room has 3 groups of adds; perhaps each of the the 3 tanks should grab one. Adds have joined the boss arena and I'm not presently being slapped; perhaps I should grab those guys. A tether formed between these 2 enemies when they got close to each other; I should probably try to break that.
I'd also add that, in situations where all 3 tanks need to hold something away from each other or 3 areas of the arena are about to be locked with an add inside, you typically separate left to right parties A, B, and C. Sometimes people put markers down, but if they don't just remember that A goes left, B center/north, and C right.
for the one pot boss in labyrinth the alliance A tank was afk out of the arena so i had to aggro the boss and just hold on to him without doing damage otherwise he would target the A tank and walk out of the arena when the fight started
Just a fact some people might find Interesting.
On JP they have some silent rules for alliance raids where the B tank is the default main tank. And if there are two bosses, such as tower 2 Boss, the A tank and C tank each take a boss where the B tank becomes the off tank.
I don't always see the boss spinning but when i do im a healer or dps and the only think i can do is to ask them to point the boss north.
Stop I’d give (and it maybe gets said in the video); don’t sit in your healing cool-downs. As a paladin you have Intervention which gives a target mitigation and a heal. If you’re sitting on 100 gauge and a dps is clipped with an aoe, you can freely use this just for the heal. Warrior has nascent flash and gunbreaker has Aurora which all act in the same way. Don’t just over cap your job gauge, use it! And that’s a tip for all classes (unless you’re stacking for a burst window of course!)
As a main tank who rarely actually off tanks thanks for this.
I really hate main tanking, but I don't mind being off tank. I normally play chicken untill the other tank turns on their stance, wait about a minute or so then stance and get second aggro. This came up in Alex Arm fight, as soon as I hit 2nd the MT died, so I ended up being the MT anyways. Turns out using your mits actually helps, shocking.
Super useful, thank you!
LoL... broken rules... there is no broken rules. All rules apply, and valid. It only means, Tanks Adjust! Different fight, different mechanics, different players,... all in all, as a vet tank, you'll have to adjust accordingly. The ability to "read" the fight is one thing all main tanks have to develop. For new tanks though, this guide is an excellent guide. Heed well, for I have great respect for Wesk guide.👍
Maybe it's different with which DC you play on, I play on Elemental, but in Alliance raids, it seems the unspoken rule of who is MT is always Alliance B, since they are the middle and front most group in the starting spawn of most Alliance raids.
When I tank as GNB, I will sometimes wordlessly defer MT to the other by using Heart of Stone/Corundum on them, as a sort of like "I got your back" sorta thing; considering I also play SGE quite often and started playing as WHM, I'm quite used to flicking to the tank to use an oGCD
But yeah, tanks need to use their abilities to help the other tank. I'm okay with being MT if they don't want to, but I generally don't prefer it, and it's nice to receive a Clemency or TBN if I'm NT
i needed this video, you rock
And to think Alliance Raids initially had 6 tanks (two per alliance).
I’ve run into way to many tanks recently that are constantly moving or even spinning the boss so the stance stays on. Being in BiS usually lets me maintain threat unless it’s provoke on cd person. Laughed at the last one that does that is convinced he’s going to be one of the first to clear the Dawntrail ultimate. Not if you’re doing all of the above buddy.
How about helping people decide between shield or pure healers. Must just say one prevents and one reacts, but theres more to it then that.
All casual healing is reactive regardless of which, all high end healing is pro-active regardless of which.
I do hope that more content gets specific jobs for off-tanks in Dawntrail, it can be a little boring in a lot of content if you're stuck just 1 2 3'ing with little to worry about.
JP datacenters have a silent rule for Alliance Raids: B Alliance Tank is the main tank (along with other silent rules)
Which alliance is eaten by Cerberus in WoD?
The NA convention is A = adds, B = belly, C = chains
@@NomoregoodnamesD8 the NA convention is A = Belly, B = Belly, C = Belly
@@Kate-ms2mn
the NA convention is A= fuck it we ball, B = fuck it we ball, C = fuck it we ball
Newbie here. Question. How do you keep tank stance on ps5? Every time I enter dungeons, I let the other players know I’m a newbie. They always give me good advice. One of them advice is keeping my tank stance on. But I don’t know how. I always gotta keep clicking so it doesn’t turn off. Your advice will be helpful.
Use the skill one time and it stays on for the rest of the duty. Level Sync turns off all buffs when syncing. So just use it once.
@@WeskAlber thx dude.
I feel like this video explains pretty well why people don't understand what off-tanks are supposed to do and often treat it as "Blue DPS". Because the answer to "what does an off-tank do" is "every single fight in the game has a different answer to that question, and you probably won't know unless someone tells you". Unless someone explains what I'm supposed to be doing as an off-tank, or I already know the fight (because someone explained it to me previously), I usually just put myself at #2 in enmity and hope that's good enough.
Personally I feel like most mechanics that are more complicated than "don't stand in the shape" are near-impossible to figure out the first time you see them if you don't have someone explaining them to you.
Well, no. I laid out pretty well general tendencies such as Adds, but did mention that some fights will have unique aspects. It's about awareness of there being exceptions rather than needing to know every exceptions.
@@WeskAlber I guess to rephrase in a slightly less dramatic way. In every fight the main tank gets to #2 in enmity, and they help with handling adds or split bosses. But it seems like anything beyond that is pretty hard to know or expect unless you already know the fight. Like most people are never going to notice a tank swap moment unless they've had it explained to them ahead of time. Most people aren't going to know that an unmarked split tankbuster or split cleave is supposed to be split unless someone tells them that. So until you know the fight, it doesn't seem like there's much you can do other than do the basic stuff and hope you're not needed for much else.
Obviously if you're in a group of people you know they can explain things to you (and that's how I've gotten through most content the first time) but if you're a new player in a random group you're gonna have no clue. And frankly for older content like the HW raids you mentioned, a lot of *experienced* players don't even know the mechanics because you can survive without doing them. There's a bunch of Alliance Raid fights that I still don't really understand after half a dozen runs because the rest of the group kills the boss regardless of what I'm doing.
I also might just be biased because I'm still in MSQ and not yet finished with Shadowbringers, so all of my raid experience and most of my Trial experience comes from ARR/HW/SB where a lot of things aren't marked or communicated very well for first-time players. Really my main complaint here is just that I feel like the game doesn't do a very good job of communicating new mechanics to people who haven't seen them, even in normal content.
I realized recently that if i mess and up and get revived (both as MT and OT really) it takes a really long while for me to go up the enmity list, though i don't actually understand if i should be using provoke in such situations or not.
If you're in 8 man or higher content, just let the other tank keep the aggro. If you're in a dungeon, provoke immediately so your healers or DPS don't get clapped.
It really depends on what's happening in the fight, so you kinda have to learn case-by-case.
Provoke during a cast and shirk the aggro back before the cast finishes is 95% of the time a safe bet that leaves the other guy tanking and doesn't spin the boss.
If a mechanic is coming up really soon that targets the first and second-place hate party members, you definitely need to provoke.
If that same mechanic is like a minute out, tank stance by itself should be enough to get you up to second place in time.
Any other situation, you can probably just take over as OT for the rest of the fight.
OT is my favorite role, I don’t even know why.
Something I like to do when offtanking is just weave my stance in my opener then shirk the other tank for good measure.
I weave my stance in my opener, too. Though I tend to save Shirk for whenever the enmity icon turns orange, since that indicates that I'm risking taking over.
9:10 this is somewhat correct but it seems like dps is so high nowadays that orbs will never touch the party
I've seen two orbs make it still. Not this run but, that's about how it's always been.
The point is less THIS MECH and more "these mechS." Like I say, no point listing them all, this is just example.
Like the A1 bosses, separating them is correct, but the damage up they get from tethering is negligible. That they die within seconds of each other is all that matters. You don't want to ignore it when bosses tether in general though, that's just one specific example of it no longer mattering.
*Turns on stance after a min has past but soon overtakes MT in enmity........* The amount of times this has happened to me really makes me wonder wtf were those MTs doing.
To be fair, it's your responsibility as on Off Tank to make sure you're not overtaking the enmity lead. Especially if you're say, a max level GNB and your MT is a lower iLvl PLD.
It easily happens when the main tank is new and isn't doing their damage rotation properly. I'm actually in a min ilvl static right now with a new main tank and i have to be very careful with my rotation and watch that aggro list like a hawk.
@@thebananas6483 Yeah, but it's also the MT's responsibility to... press buttons. If they're doing even passable damage, it should really take you more than 30s to pass them on aggro, even if you outgear them heavily.
And hey, TBN breaking on the MT is free damage on top of being supportive!
For my silent rule of who’s who. As a gunbreaker I expect the warrior maybe paladin to MT. Primarily warriors, but if they don’t turn on the stance the moment we’re let lose then screw it we ball Tank stance on! Not on higher end content yet but I always research my trials and dungeons at least once to what to expect and they’re like 3-5 min videos and honestly you really don’t need them cause #healeradjust but for real healers has great tools to save your rear - as an ex healer I have an understanding what they’re capable of. I just apologize or even just say my thx to healers.
My first main tank raid experience was LotA, i was Dark Knight abd still learning super nervous because again, first time tanking in a raid.
I mentioned this in chat and neither of the other tanks replied. For the rest if the raid they both kinda just... Fucked off? Didn't help me so i was forced to MT even though i didn't know what i was doing, died multiple times, caused a wipe all while these two max level btw tanks did Nothing
It was so miserable. Multiple people agreed with me after the raid (some gave me headpats). Probably one of the worst expiriences ive had in the game, second to trying to heal Keeper of the Lake while on extremely laggy internet where i ragequit and haven't picked up healing since
That is rather unfortunate. I might assume that both of the other tanks were new as well. At least I hope veterans aren't acting like that. In which case, kudos for being the one to step up in that situation.
As to your other story, do you always have some lag, or was it an exceptional occurrence? If it _was_ a random lag spike and not a constant issue, I'd encourage you to give it another go. Ya know, if that's something you want and all.
@@RockR277 they were veterans, had Endwalker gear
and yeah i'll get back to healing someday
I'm odd but off tank feels like a poor term for it. Sub tank always is what I call it. One cause substitute tank makes more sense and two well as a big Capcom and more so Megaman X and Zero fan sub tanks are key to some pretty hard fights when new.
Great vid as always and wow I totally never knew Double Rocket punch was a tank stack and I feel like a no duh now.
Do healers have any mechanics like this?
Not really. Especially when you get into high end, healers have a pretty equal share of the healing overall. They might get specific mechs like Searing Wind from Ifrit but...
I'd like a guide on criterion or variant dungeons, I joined a pf thinking it was just another VD clear but instead got a crash course in Savage level raiding haha😅
Variant is base mode, Critereon is Savage, and Critereon Savage is the same thing but have to do it all in one run
@@WeskAlber oh I know that *now*, but when I joined them initially I thought they were the same lol. I meant more that a guide on criterion dungeon strats would be cool, the Mount Rokkon one was insanely fun but hard to learn completely blind.
I've not even done 2/3 of them lol
Zeromus ex tbs are actually role based, which uhhhhh why
Tbh i never understand this trouble with "OffTanking" when i go savage its always something like "MT or OT" "dont care" "me either"
Some people try to explain me with something like "Yeah but im not feeling like the Hero when im not the MT!" what is for me one of the dumb things i ever heard.
> Savage
There's your problem
@@WeskAlber touche, when i play Alliance Raid or other casual content its always OT with "be ready to be the MT"
TIL that a lot of alexander has a lot of shared TB
a little bit toxic, i admit,
but i start with stance off, do my opener, and turn it on.
if i get aggro, without provoke, i'm MT now
edit: i play PLD
I mean, that's pretty fair.
"There is an unspoken rule about Main tank."
Me: Please not the same DRK/WAR mt PLD/GNB ot bs
"Whiever hits their button first is MT"
My MT PLD smile 😊
TBF when I play PLD as OT I *like* just being a mountain of mitigation for both the group and my tank buddy. Just hang out behind the boss in front of the group, no need to move for Wings, throw your Interventions on the MT before you cap on ressources, it's the healer gameplay with less of the responsibility.
But, when the other tank chickens out? I'll gladly live out my Main Protagonist dreams. Nothing gives me greater satisfaction than leaving a DRK in the dust aggro-wise. Oh you just Taunted because *now* you wanna be the main character? Give it 10s and that boss will be mine again and I wont have to do anything extra for that either :3
Dick-measuring between tanks can get tiring for everyone involved but there are days I feel just petty enough for it to be fun.
@@annatipperina345 I just want my PLD dots back, it was great the mitigation buff we recieved but where's my funny rotation gone? NGL now that PLD is just GNB- if I have to tank I play WAR but it's not something I seek out anymore.
tehe, he keeps saying doodie
i already replied on twitter but i was in that labyrinth of the ancients run, truly a shitshow of all time lmao
420th like. Haha meme number. Lolz
because of on and off tank i don't play tank. dd or heal yes but tank no thanks
in normal, it's fine.
just turn on tank stance and provoke if mt dies.
it occasionally happens and you can have a good laugh if the dps gets smacked.
bad tank? leave mt alone. everyone adjust.
That last clip. A9N. Alexander the eyes of the creator normal. Now this is a killer. The normal content that occasionally get voted abandon. Off tank or main tank doesn't matter. Please bring faust to southeast platform. It doesn't matter if you kill him fast. The boss will drop all the floor before his defense buff falls off.
That last one is just objectively incorrect. Faust is what gives the defense buff. If you kill fast and get him on the 3rd platform, you get some extra DPS time. Doesn't matter in Normals, but that's just a factually untrue statement.
I feel like ive been seeing a lot more players just...not knowing what they are doing lately, mainly tanks and healers but do see dps as well.
Seeing way more tanks single pulling and not aoe, healers using their useless heals once they get their better ones, dps only using aoe/ranged attacks against single targets and bosses.
And if i say something its either ignored or im told to shut up.
I just dont commend people anymore unless they go out of their way to do extra.
And its not just sprouts, i see people with all roles maxed out or even just all tanks at 90 still doing these things
Kinda related but the game has a bit of toxic positivity problem. I recently healed a run of Sastasha where the tank had even said they were new and asked for guidance. I offered advice, but by the end he was still having issues keeping aggro on groups. I was about to tell him to just spam aoe on any groups, but both dps told him he did a great job and I refrained for fear of someone starting something, which I regret. All they did was reinforce bad play.
@@RockR277 yeaaaaa...something needs to change in the community. people are telling others they are doing good when in reality they arent which reinforces the new players mindset into 'hey im doing a good job, im going to keep doing that!'. or people just dont say anything because they dont want to get banned due to how sensitive this community is.
with how the world is today, people dont like negativity, being told what to do. yet look how miserable the world has been getting because people arent told off that they are straight up wrong, or disciplined when they were children. the younger generation has no respect for anything nowadays because they were never physically slapped on the ass to make them learn at a young age
Hey I'm the MT at 15:02! 🤯 I'm not really familiar with tank swaps; this whole time I thought the concussion thing was some sort of special tankbuster, so when you took that last hit from Twinkledinks for me, I remember thinking, oh how nice of you! 🥹 (You can also see me pop a panic invuln afterwards lol)
Thanks for such an informative video! Maybe we'll run into each other again 😂
Yeah nowadays it's just mit and probably be ok. But normally that's just meant to be outright lethal
the amount of times the MT dies and boss pimp slappin healer and dps HP bars left and right while OT just sits in corner widdlin their thumbs as party chat says "VOKE BOSS" and we wipe