This topic recently came up in a thread on TankSpot so I figured I’d give it a go myself in writing something up about it, perhaps I’ll even make it an on-going series of subject matter here provided anyone is interested.
There are exactly two instances I can think of off of the top of my head where it is okay to taunt a mob off of another tank. Hopefully you guys will help me think of a couple more.
- Boss strategy. When a boss encounter calls for it, like Vashj. When the main tank gets rooted (pre-Warbringer anyway) or stunned during Phase 1 or 3, it’s important for the OT to immediately pick her up.
- To preserve another tank. When you might be out of range of healers and the tank that has a mob is about to die. A good example of this is the Infernals that drop during Kaz’rogal and Azgalor trash in Hyjal. Another example was on our Illidan kill last night; one of our Flame tanks went down and I stepped in long enough for the first one to die, then the living Flame tank taunted it back off of me.
This means that if the situation you find yourself in doesn’t fall into one of the top two categories, do not taunt off of another tank. I don’t care if you’re a better tank or better geared or whatever the excuse is, it is a slap in the face of the other tank if you do this. On a very basic level you are saying to that tank that you do not trust them to do their job.*
We all accidentally taunt, just because you do doesn’t make you a terrible tank but please apologize for it. A quick, “sorry about that, Bob the Tank” in Vent can help smooth it all over and stop a potential flare-up from occurring. And believe me when I say that they will know what you’re apologizing for.
There is one situation in which taunting off of another tank’s target is acceptable, though it still isn’t the best idea in the world, and that is AOE tanking. As far as I’m concerned in these hectic situations as long as the mobs are not on the DPS or the healers it not a problem and you should not take someone taunting off of you personally, you should be happy that you are all doing your job and not allowing the raid to take unnecessary damage.
*If you really don’t trust the other tank, instead of taunting off of them stop bringing them to raids.Popularity: 14% [?]
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3.) To make healing easier. Mmmh how about basic raiding and mob groups (before 3.0.2, at least)? We’d have the MT pick up 2 targets and the OT pick up 2 targets, as my first killtarget would go down I’d pick up one of the mobs on the OT. For progression, that is, as long as the OT is at a level where he could easily die. It’s a slap in the face if you do it unplanned, but it’s more a slap to the face to your OT if he goes down and chaos is all over the place
4.) To speed up trash. Also we tried to make pulling faster that way lately, having my OT pick off the last mob of me so I would charge into the next group already, where he would taunt off one or two guys when they’d finished up the former pack. But that’s easymode-raiding at the time, so probably will not
5.) To slap the other tank in the face. If you know the guy it can be fun to do the taunt-contest-game every once in a while!
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I have to respectfully disagree with this “only 2 reasons” notion…
I agree with the previous poster’s points 3 and 4.. particularly in a situation with a dedicated MT and a hybrid OT that is not necessarily in an ideal spec/gear set to make them as efficient at avoiding/mitigating damage. It’s not about trusting or not trusting them to tank a mob – it’s about doing what’s best for the group/raid which in some cases means transferring incoming damage to a tank that is better geared and easier to heal.
A good tanking team’s job is to control a fight once CC is sorted out and allow the rest of the raid to do their job efficiently, including the healing team. If an OT has a big ego about tanking a specific mob even though another tank is available and can do it at less healing cost (mana / downtime) to the raid they are acting selfishly, period.
All of your guys’ points are very good, thanks for bringing them up. Just to clear up a point, though, I’d like to point out I said “two reasons I can think of off of the top of my head” but “two reasons ever”.
With the badge gear so easy to get these days, and my guild getting heavily into the raiding game only after it was made available, I haven’t really run into a problem where I’m bringing an OT that is heavily under-geared or really under-geared at all. Under-skilled, yes but under-geared, no.
Funny how things happen… did a quick Gruul’s and Mag run after reading this, and sure enough, another tank kept taunting off me for the first couple pulls.
Then he says in vent that he’s sorry, he’d re-arranged his bars a bit and wasn’t quite used to it yet.
He still taunted off me a couple more times after, but always said a quick sorry. We all yanked his chain about it during the runs and he was quick to laugh with us about it.
Wow, I was going to make a post about this very thing. It happens from time to time to me and I usually do not say anything – thinking it was a mistake or a very tardy taunt on a loose mob that I already have. But the other day in TK a tank would not stop taunting off me – I’d had enough and asked her to stop over vent. People laughed and the RL told her to please stop.
It is an insult, but we certainly don’t need taunts on cooldown for when the could really be used to save a life.
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