Post by Azherae on 2022-01-20 21:21:58
Pretty amazed this thread is still going on but for the sake of it, might as well add my bit.
Offtanking is the act of activating a defensive ability from your class, usually from a class that has fewer of these, for a short term action to hold a certain set of enemies either because the main tank cannot due to their own ability timers or requirements... or because something about your class makes you the most efficient at doing so.
E.g. a Rogue/Tank that normally takes Mitigation style Augments to help the Tank/Cleric (for example) actually take less damage, also occasionally uses a threat move combined with some evasion buff to offtank against some enemy (usually an add or secondary boss with lower HP) that does large physical damage but has low accuracy, when the group's main tank is either not the evasion Tank (probably because of whatever the main target is), or their cooldowns for things like Ultimate Defense are down for some reason.
When the enemy is quickly killed efficiently without the maintank taking much damage, or when the Maintank has a strong mitigation ability back up, then the offtank stops, and probably, their strong defensive ability wore off anyway. The healer tops them up with a Regen or something since they aren't taking damage anymore, and efficiency is achieved.
This isn't the same as having a secondary tank, and often, in this situation, a secondary tank is overkill. Often needed in quick runs through dynamic content.
Depending on the length of the fight, and the timers on abilities, the offtank may do this sort of thing multiple times per fight, in a rhythm that is usually discussed beforehand with the main tank.
Offtanking is the act of activating a defensive ability from your class, usually from a class that has fewer of these, for a short term action to hold a certain set of enemies either because the main tank cannot due to their own ability timers or requirements... or because something about your class makes you the most efficient at doing so.
E.g. a Rogue/Tank that normally takes Mitigation style Augments to help the Tank/Cleric (for example) actually take less damage, also occasionally uses a threat move combined with some evasion buff to offtank against some enemy (usually an add or secondary boss with lower HP) that does large physical damage but has low accuracy, when the group's main tank is either not the evasion Tank (probably because of whatever the main target is), or their cooldowns for things like Ultimate Defense are down for some reason.
When the enemy is quickly killed efficiently without the maintank taking much damage, or when the Maintank has a strong mitigation ability back up, then the offtank stops, and probably, their strong defensive ability wore off anyway. The healer tops them up with a Regen or something since they aren't taking damage anymore, and efficiency is achieved.
This isn't the same as having a secondary tank, and often, in this situation, a secondary tank is overkill. Often needed in quick runs through dynamic content.
Depending on the length of the fight, and the timers on abilities, the offtank may do this sort of thing multiple times per fight, in a rhythm that is usually discussed beforehand with the main tank.