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[BLSTMASTER]

I think it comes down to what each guild decides to do on 1 tank fights,
and Also how much YOU as the off-tank is willing to 'sacrifice' for the benefit of the guild/raid.

I think this can also apply to 2 heal/3 heal fights (3~6 heal fights on 25mans)

[Deleted]

Dynamic raid setup, it affects up to 20% total of your group, and more if a special setup is needed.

Basicaly, you need

1 Tank Main spec
1 Tank with good dps off spec
5 Dps main spec (and only spec) with resonable mixture melee ranged.
1 more dps with good healing off spec
2 Healers main spec.

The guys that switch have the worse role in the game. Reasonably, they will never Outdps and outheal anything. Might be considered by others as a liability, needing on both their roles will also make them unpleasant to others.
If you look it the other way around, it provides variety, and requires team spirit over individualism.
Make sure the people undertaking the roles have priority for their off spec over others that have also, say...a healing offspec.
Make sure that those taking those roles are no loothores.
Try, those people to have team spirit and the sence of sacrifice for the greater good, but still to be driven enough to be competitive when they DPS.

A similar change in 25 affects much smaller part of your raid. 8% vs 20%, and changes like that can easier go unnoticed.

[Deleted]

What's the problem with tanks/heal having to go dps for some of the fights ? We've always had all our healers & tanks have a dps offspec, which they should know to play, so we can switch composition on the fly whenever it's needed. And even if their offspec is not as "perfectly geared" as their mainspec, there was enough previous content farm to get it to a "good level".

IMHO, if healers/tanks stick to tank/tank or heal/heal spec, and are too lazy/greedy to take 2 mins to portal & respec when their mainspec is not "needed", then get them benched.

[tomehere]

Dynamic raid setup, it affects up to 20% total of your group, and more if a special setup is needed.

Basicaly, you need

1 Tank Main spec
1 Tank with good dps off spec
5 Dps main spec (and only spec) with resonable mixture melee ranged.
1 more dps with good healing off spec
2 Healers main spec.

The guys that switch have the worse role in the game. Reasonably, they will never Outdps and outheal anything. Might be considered by others as a liability, needing on both their roles will also make them unpleasant to others.
If you look it the other way around, it provides variety, and requires team spirit over individualism.
Make sure the people undertaking the roles have priority for their off spec over others that have also, say...a healing offspec.
Make sure that those taking those roles are no loothores.
Try, those people to have team spirit and the sence of sacrifice for the greater good, but still to be driven enough to be competitive when they DPS.

A similar change in 25 affects much smaller part of your raid. 8% vs 20%, and changes like that can easier go unnoticed.

Team spirit should not be born from these reasons.

[KaPe]

Funny how things change. Dual spec used to be sort of a nice perk. A bonus talent spec for spare time, or highly specialized build for your primary role - say, a second tanking spec. But right now, "Team Spirit" requires people to do a role they didn't sign up for. And if you disagree, you're appearently "lazy" and "greedy".
Hell, being a Priest, I pretty much need 2 healing specs. So in my case, not only I vastly prefer healing, but respecing DPS would be a major pita. Obviously, it's easier to tweak healer numbers than tank numbers, but the point remains. Usually tanks want to tank, not "I guess once in a while I could grab few adds, but I love my big cirtz moar!". And yet, things changed from "2 tanks" to "1 tank and 1 tank-dps hybrid, or just bench him".

But oh yeah, "Team Spirit".

[Nobleshield]

That's it in a nutshell. Many main spec tanks (Warriors, at least) recommend dual tanking specs (one AOE, one single target) as the preferred way to tank, as opposed to having one "generalist" spec and then a DPS spec. My issue is more of gear/output as someone else mentioned - an off-spec's gear will never be as good as a main spec barring some really crazy RNG or if you're lucky enough to not run with anyone else that uses your gear type e.g. Feral in a raid with a Resto/Boom druid and no Rogue, Pally/Warrior/DK in a raid with no plate melee. For those of us who have had neither our OS gear is lacking as we've spent our VP on main spec upgrades, and gotten main spec upgrades but not many, if any at all, offspec upgrades. Now a lot of this will be made moot when 4.3 hits as we can pick up remaining T12 gear from JP and fill the gaps with 378 gear from the 5-mans, but if you're in a serious raiding guild that expects to clear normals first week you're still at a disadvantage because you won't be rocking full or near-full 391 gear at the start.

[Mammoth]

Just gear a dps offspec like every other tank? Or if you want to whine that you have no interest in dps, both tanks should have geared offspecs, just take turns dpsing/tanking?

Of course I want to. I love mixing it up. Why would I dislike filling a variety of roles? It keeps the game more interesting, that's for sure.

The problem is in the majority of cases a guild will have an inflexible MT and RL. The MT gets loot priority on tanking gear and thus will be the tank for all the single tank fights, because he is the best choice.

This means that the OT will be doing dps 50% of the time. This wouldn't be too bad to mix it up, except it's always the same fights every week. As a tank you want the opportunity to tank every fight in the expansion, but as an OT you only get the chance to tank half of them.

[Deleted]

Team spirit should not be born from these reasons.

Team spirit has to come for some reason.
This world is full of selfish kids.
This is why it is less and less about team play, and more and more about a model that makes the individual feel "that he has a meaningfull contribution to the outcome of the battle".

P.S. We raid 10, now lets grow up. This minor setbacks is part of the deal.

[mag07]

Hmm, I wonder - how does one manage not to gear an offspec or two during such a long time FL was on farm? The better guild you're in, the longer the farm status. Gear is most certainly not a factor mister OP, skill might be if you can't pull your weight as derps, then yes, you may end up benched.

[Deleted]

Hmm, I wonder - how does one manage not to gear an offspec or two during such a long time FL was on farm?

Could be just bad RNG. For half of this tier, we had two plate dps running with us (one switched to Rogue once the daggers were announced) and still our 100% attendance Warrior tank has mostly tier-11 DPS gear - but it's not like he ever gets to DPS anyway.

[SinRaven]

I'm sure you're just trolling and I doubt you're going to return to this thread, but believe it or not, Tanks want to Tank. It might come as a surprise to you, but most Tanks enjoy Tanking, and don't want to be forced to DPS for the majority of fights.

I totally agree with this. Personally I enjoy DPS'ing a lot less. However as discussed tanks have to DPS these days I put a lot less effort into my gear and even concentration when DPS'ing. But you gotta do what you gotta do I guess.

[Dyrtnap]

Honestly if you and your guild are at the level that you are worried about being benched for progression purposes there is basically no reason you shouldn't have a full DPS off set. IF you have been doing HM fights since the first few weeks of 4.2 its nearly impossible that you don't have a full DPS set. There shouldn't be (even top server) guilds that aren't smart enough to gear the second tank asap. There have always been fights that required more or less tanks its the way this game works.

In a perfect world you want to find someone who likes both roles so they will actually be good at their part time DPS role. It is true that some tanks just aren't good DPSers just like some DPSers aren't good tanks. BUT if you can't fill both roles close to equally well you don't belong in a guild that is worrying about competing for even server firsts (unless you're on a backwater server where killing HShannox means you're top 3) let alone top 25's or 50's.

To me it often feels like people complaining about this are using the excuse of being benched when many of them are from guilds that can't/haven't even done the current heroic modes let alone worrying about "racing" to HM's. Many people that play one role more than the other become slightly better at one or the other but top level players are top level players. They should not suffer from that. THERE IS NO DPS SPEC THAT IS HARD ENOUGH THAT ANY TANK CAN REASONABLY COMPLAIN THAT THEY CAN'T DO REASONABLE DPS SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY DON'T DO IT AS MUCH. Many will and do but that doesn't make it a valid complaint ESPECIALLY if they are a "top level" player like many claim directly or indirectly. If you have a full DPS set (like every decent tank from a decent guild should) there are no acceptable excuses.

Honestly I realize that what I'm saying may be offensive to some but reality is offensive to people who are living in a fantasy world. If you aren't in a top 25-50 guild don't complain about not being able to do adequate DPS thus getting benched because realistically most guilds that aren't competing for top 25 won't do it anyway. Many guilds are struggling to make a steady roster anymore which should concrete many peoples positions even more. I get not being happy about having too many 1 tank fights because you don't like to DPS and I respect that but I do get sick of hearing I can't do decent dps or I'm getting benched complaints from all but a small handful of worlds best.

[mitbrandir]

feels like blizzard really doesnt know how to make fun fights for tanks anymore, thats why im playing my lock in raids now until they figure out how to make something fun for a tank again.

Alysrazor is fun for my druid