Q from would-be tank: how much communication with 2nd tank is needed?

[Deleted]

I think (voice) communication is only needed when something out of the ordinary happens and otherwise should be left for raid leaders to call out for raid cooldowns and whatever they like to announce. I mostly discuss matters with my fellow tank in whispers pre- and post-fight, even in guild runs if it only involves what me and the other tank are doing.

Agree. There are little, if any, mechanics that require constant communication between tanks during the fight. Pretty much everything can be sorted out before hand, and things really only go tits up when something bad happens (deaths, bad timing, taunts etc) and you need to recover from it. That is where you really see an experienced tank team shine, but outside of those situations, it is generally taunt at X these days.

If you are thinking about current fights in SOO, for me the real messup possibilities are Siegecrafter (not killing add in time and how to not wipe) and klaxxi between who tanks what, especially if you can't bop off a debuff.

[Utinil]

As others have said, you need to communicate at the beginning (I am taking towers, I will take boss first, I will go down first, move mobs clockwise, taunt at 3, etc). Once the fight starts, you normally don't need to communicate with each other unless something goes wrong (loose add, accidentally took an extra debuff while not tanking, etc). But those in fight communications are absolutely vital that they don't get missed in general raid spam. I will often Ctrl + C /w OtherTank in a pug, so if something comes up, I can always just Ctrl + V that person and send them a tell so it will at least appear in a different color text, and hopefully they notice it. Once again with voice chat, this is less important.

[Deleted]

''Do you know tacts?''
-Yes
''K''

After this actually i never communicated to 2nd tank in flex, lfr, normal pugs.

[Alroxas]

In general, the higher difficulty that you go the more communication is helpful. However, this assumes that the rest of the raid (including the other tank) don't have those "oh crap" moments. If you want to factor in those "oh crap" moments then I would say communication (especially voice comms) are necessary.

As for examples in Normal SoO, most fights require taunt swaps at pre-determined stacks (i.e. Immerseus = 1 stack, Sha = 1 stack, Iron Jugg = 2 then 3 stacks, etc.). There are some fights where there are some more flexibility on stacks (i.e. Nourshen, Malkorok, Shamans - 2 Tank strat) depending on the tank class and their ability to soak stacks.

Lastly, there are "special" fights in SoO that have completely different rules for comms. For instance, Spoils doesn't need much tank coordination but Paragons would might need extra coordination (which tank picking up which mini-bosses).

Mechanics aside, communication also depends on the synergy between you and the other tank and is typically built over time. It's similar to the synergy between tanks and healers when healers are able to anticipate when tanks use their defensive CDs and rotate in their healing CDs to prevent tank death without "wasting" a CD.

[Monoliith]

I've been tanking for about 5 years now.

A - If you are playing with someone you are comfortable around, not to much is needed as you can trust each other to make the right decisions. This makes your entire raid go smoother as vent is clearer and the tanks can focus on raid leading or calling mechanics out.
B - Playing with someone you barely know can be intimidating, which can lead to either you trying to talk over each other or not talking at all; which, unless your both completely aware of every mechanic is probably going to cause at least some problems.

Try to always talk to your fellow tank after raid, just to get friendly and comfortable around each other. Synergy is a very big deal for tanks.

This video is my guilds Heroic Spoils progression kill. We have very little communication between tanks even on a fight where you do need quite a bit (on heroic, yes tank communication is helpful...stupid orbs)

I ranked on this btw ;p

[Kaiten]

Communication is more important from a tank->healer perspective. Then your healers are aware when tank swaps are occurring and how they can prepare for them. It's especially important now when we don't raid in a "x is a dedicated tank healer" environment.

[Viradiance]

Ahead-of-time just say "Taunt at X" and you're golden. MOP has been awful for tanks heh.

[Deleted]

Calling out tankswaps is nice for your co-tank and your healers (beacon/hotline). And i think it's important for progression. If both of you already know the fight, have plenty of gear to not fight on the bleeding edge and it's just a farm thing there shouldn't be a problem in hearing your favorite music in the highest volume while everyone is minding their own business. Only when some things go wrong and there need some adjustments to be made on the fly you'd be better of with communicating again.

[Dastuross]

I think the fight myself and my co-tank have had to communicate most on was H Blackfuse, simply for the fact that some pulls we'd need to take different stacks than others (either one of us doesn't have a CD for 7/8, we need to swap who's killed a specific Shredder, boss positioning changes, etc) other than that we work things out in whispers (still need to setup mumble binds >.>) before we start progress (like on Paragons H, who's tanking what mob, taunt swaps for Korven, etc).

With that said, i will always talk to my co-tank in Normal/Flex pugs on my alts to figure out what we're doing, it prevents wipes.

Also, setting up Weakauras to track your co-tanks debuffs is very helpful.

[Temp name]

As someone who is currently tanking with a new tank, it's mostly just us talking about who taunts when, and then during the fights the most we'll specifically talk to each other is if the other person forgot to taunt at the right stacks (4-5 stacks on Nazrgim is fun)

[rulee]

Since you're JUST starting out, you'll mostly be pugging in LFR. Until you REALLY know the fights, just whisper the other tank and say like "Taunt at 5 stacks?" or if you don't know the fight very well, "I'm still a little new to tanking, what do you need me to do here?".

With the last one, you're going to get one of three responses. Help, condescension, or nothing.

Most of the time, other tanks are helpful, or that was my experience when I was first learning fights.

The other times, you may get nothing in response and the tank just pulls the boss before everyone is ready.

Rarely do you get a 2nd tank who yells at you or makes snide remarks to you about not knowing the fights. When this happened to me, depending on circumstances, would just leave the group. I don't have time for an annoying tank because you know on the first wipe he's going to start cussing everyone out and blaming every one but himself.

Whenever I tank in LFR (very rarely anymore) I talk to the tank to see where he's at knowledge-wise and help him through it if he needs it. Otherwise, it's just a simple, "do this when that happens"

And since I over gear Flex by a wide margin, I'll usually take a tank with lower ilvl along to help him learn the ropes of flex since it's a bigger jump in difficulty.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

I have always been playing DPS and healer specs, and I'd like to try tanking. I understand I have to know every fight that I tank beforehand, from the tank point of view, and preferably from the point of view of other specs as well, lest I wipe people unnecessarily. That's fine, I can do that.

What's worrying me is something else: most fights use two tanks and so there should be some communication between me and the 2nd tank. My question is: how much of that communication is required and how it is generally performed? How, say, the swaps are normally done - do we just look for debuffs on each other or do we whisper 'take the boss' or what?

Could fellow tanks specify what exactly they say to their counterpart in various SoO encounters, just as an illustration?

Thanks in advance.

A lot of communication via voice chat for the first kill, and then you get to know how the other tank is going to play and it is reduced to the lowest necessary amount to clear the voice chat for other stuff. Like, for our first Heroic Paragons kill almost nothing was said by anybody other than the tanks and the raid lead calling for raid cooldowns while killing the last two bosses. Now we need to talk a lot less.

Things you might talk about:
Taunting
Stacks
Who picks up adds
When you want a cooldown (vigilance, hand of sacrifice etc)

[Deleted]

At heroic level, the fights are planed out before you enter the fight. So both tanks know when stuff needs to be done. And ofc you work all that out before. The only reason to talk during the counter is when shit goes wrong. And you need to react quickly. But at this point were all progress is done, you rarly speek much with your co-tank

[Raugnaut]

Smart players will know the fight and keep an eye out for debuffs, and be able to taunt off accordingly. Of course, you always have your !@#$ing stupid dumbass players that play with a thumb stuck in their ass and need someone to hold their hand for every single fight every single time. Rid yourself of these players.

Some communication is needed of course.

[Lessthanzer0]

how much i talk to the other tanks depends if that boss is on farm and how many times we've done it. right now me and the other tank don't talk at all except if something out of the ordinary happens but during progression we will communicate every swap. if there is a fight where there are two roles to fill like galakras then its important to talk to the other tank before the fight to decide who is doing what, this can be done in whispers or over voice chat. when you run with the same tank every week after awhile you know how each other play and what needs to be done so no communication at all is fine. honestly during farm now i communicate more with the healers for external cds than i do with the other tank. i think the only fight we actually talk is norushen just to let each other know when we are up out of the test realm.

when it comes to pugs then its a matter of their experience. if they are 14/14h then i'm fine with them sitting quiet but if they mess something up or wipe the raid then i'd expect them to be a little more vocal. and of course with pugs i would always take a minute before the fight to tell them our strat cause it may be different from what they do with their guild.

[Azelias]

I'm one of the 3rd / backup tanks for my 25man guild, and all we generally mention is: "taunting", and "DR". Naturally, there is also the "external" call, but apart from that, not much.

We have 5 active tanks, so our communication method is compatible with everyone.

On the note of spoils though, if everyone is doing their job properly with people who know exactly what's happening and when, you don't actually need to have any verbal discussion related to the fight (Insert casual chat time instead ). Assigned people do the sparks, tanks open crates, people DPS anything that is attackable.

[Gliff]

We call taunts and CDs in mumble but mostly talk to each other in private binds so we don't clog mumble with chat noone else needs to hear.

That and we sing:

[PsychoDK]

Most of communication is just coordinating who is doing what during which point in the fight.

I, though, while progressing on HC Blackfuse, found myself talking a lot to the other tank because we couldn't set up a decent strat, since the ranged/belt team kept making mistakes and causing wipes. But like I said, just strat setting and practice, since most of the basic stuff shouldn't even be said to avoid causing confusions.

[Arrkon]

Good communication has always been key to difficult content.. However after weeks and weeks of killing the same boss, using the same strat, and/or wiping to the same boss mechanic it becomes second nature that tank swaps or add pick ups cease to be announced. I find that it’s the fuck ups that deviate from the norm that really need communication otherwise time is wasted to recognize and fix the fuck up. I'd say that just asking before a fight will help a lot if it hasn't been already mentioned in the explanation pre-pull. More than once I have been whispered asking for some advice or getting a quick reassurance on what they are supposed to do. In the event that you end up with an absolute moron I've had to make macros for spamming taunt swaps and the like via whispers, but it hardly ever will come to that if they already are joining the communication in the first place.

[Deleted]

i always make sure we both know the fight and we know when to taunt, etc.


a little communication is always a plus, even if it just a simple "hello" ^^