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The first thing we must talk about is the multiple functions of a tank, and this guide will review only the ones of the Warrior class.
A tank is what a player becomes when he finds himself holding threat of a certain Mob or Monster and taking its damage, preventing the other players of the party or raid from taking direct damage. There are two "known" jobs in which a tank can perform:
In effect, through mitigation, position and making sure to hold enough threat so that other players in your raid can do as much damage as they can without getting aggro, you will be directly responsible for the security of your group. Sometimes, this position is quite wanted by some people in order to gain a kind of fame or respect. If you intend to do this job, leave that aside, and concentrate on doing your job the best that you can for your group.
The MT's job can be quite stressful as well, and is probably one of the jobs that will you making hate this game if you weren't "born" for it. You must be active and vigilant throughout the whole instance, if it's a raid it can take several hours, and you cannot go away for a minute without warning, because people will die due to that. A Rogue can go away a moment without telling anyone and most of the time no one will find out, you, on the contrary, go away a moment and everyone will know you were not on the ball. Yes, the job sounds scary, but you decided to take the responsibility.
It is not as bad as the main tank but you still have quite some responsibility, especially if the MT decides to stop living and wants to play with the worms on the floor. I often find myself with OTs that are not doing what I believe is a secondary part of tanking, but rather doing DPS. This is a misconception of the job, although it is true at the same time. An Off Tank on the same target as the MT is trying to build threat on it, so that in the case that the MT dies, he will be holding threat.
But that's not it! A Main Tank is in defensive and can hardly move away from it. It is the OT's job to Thunder Clap the target (an excellent skill many times not used), since it must be done in Battle Stance, or in some rare cases where the Mob is positioned in such a way that it's too far away from the Main Tank, yet the Main Tank is hitting him, and he can't use Demoralizing Shout, then you'll have to provide that as well. If you have been entitled with this position, then remember you are the Main Tank's mate, and he relies on you for certain things he can't do. Help him in the best of your abilities, his job is hard enough as it is.
In your party, you can maintain the target and create threat or aggro on that target so it will stay hitting you directly, and not others will obviously incur in you taking that damage. If you have been appointed or decided to become a tank, you will be geared in such a way that you will be taking less damage per hit than other possible options in your party or raid. This will not always be true, since an assigned tank could die and you could find yourself becoming the Main Tank due to your threat, over a better geared tank, who could not create such a high amount of threat in time, whose taunt was resisted, who just got a blue screen, or was ay from the keyboard with auto-attack on.
For you, the first and most important job is done even before engaging and that knows how the encounter works. But most of the time, you must take what the mob into consideration that you are about to face is able to do.
As above, all these are factors that you must be aware of, and take them into account while tanking. After making sure the target is on you, this will be your biggest worry, and must act accordingly and position the mob in such a way that none of these factors will be a problem for the raid, if they are avoidable at all.
A tank is what a player becomes when he finds himself holding threat of a certain Mob or Monster and taking its damage, preventing the other players of the party or raid from taking direct damage. There are two "known" jobs in which a tank can perform:
In effect, through mitigation, position and making sure to hold enough threat so that other players in your raid can do as much damage as they can without getting aggro, you will be directly responsible for the security of your group. Sometimes, this position is quite wanted by some people in order to gain a kind of fame or respect. If you intend to do this job, leave that aside, and concentrate on doing your job the best that you can for your group.
The MT's job can be quite stressful as well, and is probably one of the jobs that will you making hate this game if you weren't "born" for it. You must be active and vigilant throughout the whole instance, if it's a raid it can take several hours, and you cannot go away for a minute without warning, because people will die due to that. A Rogue can go away a moment without telling anyone and most of the time no one will find out, you, on the contrary, go away a moment and everyone will know you were not on the ball. Yes, the job sounds scary, but you decided to take the responsibility.
It is not as bad as the main tank but you still have quite some responsibility, especially if the MT decides to stop living and wants to play with the worms on the floor. I often find myself with OTs that are not doing what I believe is a secondary part of tanking, but rather doing DPS. This is a misconception of the job, although it is true at the same time. An Off Tank on the same target as the MT is trying to build threat on it, so that in the case that the MT dies, he will be holding threat.
But that's not it! A Main Tank is in defensive and can hardly move away from it. It is the OT's job to Thunder Clap the target (an excellent skill many times not used), since it must be done in Battle Stance, or in some rare cases where the Mob is positioned in such a way that it's too far away from the Main Tank, yet the Main Tank is hitting him, and he can't use Demoralizing Shout, then you'll have to provide that as well. If you have been entitled with this position, then remember you are the Main Tank's mate, and he relies on you for certain things he can't do. Help him in the best of your abilities, his job is hard enough as it is.
In your party, you can maintain the target and create threat or aggro on that target so it will stay hitting you directly, and not others will obviously incur in you taking that damage. If you have been appointed or decided to become a tank, you will be geared in such a way that you will be taking less damage per hit than other possible options in your party or raid. This will not always be true, since an assigned tank could die and you could find yourself becoming the Main Tank due to your threat, over a better geared tank, who could not create such a high amount of threat in time, whose taunt was resisted, who just got a blue screen, or was ay from the keyboard with auto-attack on.
For you, the first and most important job is done even before engaging and that knows how the encounter works. But most of the time, you must take what the mob into consideration that you are about to face is able to do.
As above, all these are factors that you must be aware of, and take them into account while tanking. After making sure the target is on you, this will be your biggest worry, and must act accordingly and position the mob in such a way that none of these factors will be a problem for the raid, if they are avoidable at all.
