"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.

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!

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.

as a sprout i thank you for this video, ive been looking for a video about this

Fantastic guide! This is what I was looking for last year and there wasn't anything. Thank you so much for your amazing guides!

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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 💜

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.

Thanks for the guides! They help a lot!

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.

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 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.

Thank you for making this! I'm always so confused in alliance raids when I play tank

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.

Much needed guide. off tanking is fun and people should do more and properly.

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

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

really helpful stuff, thank you!

You're sounding better:-). 'the code is more what you might call, guidelines.'

Super useful, thank you!

Just completed msq and starting the harder content and this is real useful, thanks

i needed this video, you rock

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

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

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 ^^

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!

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!

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.

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 😅

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.

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.

My EU player urge of shouting "pull the dragon north" is tingling. xD

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.

Can you elaborate on the healer tank strat in cutters cry? I've never heard of that before O_O

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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?

As a main tank who rarely actually off tanks thanks for this.

And to think Alliance Raids initially had 6 tanks (two per alliance).

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.

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.

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.

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!)

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 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.

And hey, TBN breaking on the MT is free damage on top of being supportive!

JP datacenters have a silent rule for Alliance Raids: B Alliance Tank is the main tank (along with other silent rules)

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.

OT is my favorite role, I don’t even know why.

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.

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.

9:10 this is somewhat correct but it seems like dps is so high nowadays that orbs will never touch the party

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'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😅

Something I like to do when offtanking is just weave my stance in my opener then shirk the other tank for good measure.

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

Do healers have any mechanics like this?

*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.

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.

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

Both tanks with stance on facing the opposite directions is always morally correct. Just use true north lmao.

TIL that a lot of alexander has a lot of shared TB

Zeromus ex tbs are actually role based, which uhhhhh why

tehe, he keeps saying doodie

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

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.

You're lying, 24 man tanking usually consists of the 3 tanks keeping their Provokes on cooldown trying to one up each other.

420th like. Haha meme number. Lolz

i already replied on twitter but i was in that labyrinth of the ancients run, truly a shitshow of all time lmao

"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 😊

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.

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

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 😂