Guardian tank swapping on boss encounters

Now that we will typically be running with a 2 guard tanking setup for raiding I'd like to give a short look into how tank swapping works for Guards.

Threat Stance: +20-28% perceived threat, when you drop threat stance any threat gained by the stance modifier is LOST altogether.

The Setup
Tanking Guard: Is in threat stance and makes the switch call while going as hard as he can
Switching Guard: Moves into position normally in block stance ready to engage

The switch (once in position)
Switching guard: turns on threat stance and use "engage" on target (aggro copy, now has same aggro as tanking guard)
Tanking Guard: drops threat stance (into block stance) after successful engage and moves to off-tanking position.

The whole time this is going on both guards need to be building aggro as hard as they can even when offtanking, because if engage or stances are switched too early complications arise as they guard moving to pick up the boss will be on the backfoot.

Three Scenarios that create problems for switching aggro

• Engage misses: If this happens all the excess threat the tanking guard has built is lost and the switching guard will often be on pace with or behind the DPS and may not be able to hold the boss if a subsequent force taunt is resisted.
  
• Tanking guard drops threat stance before the switcher engages: If this happens it isn't necessarily as bad as a missed engage as the main-tanking guard has normally put out more threat building chains due to being hit more but may result in the switching guard only being *just* ahead of the DPS.
  
• Tanking guard drops threat stance early and switchers engage misses: Ultimately the same as engage missing, the switcher will need to force taunt and try and re-build the threat buffer on the DPS.

NOTE: in ENGAGE MISS scenarios it is more likely that as the tank drops threat stance the boss may target a DPS with high aggro, which is why it is advisable for the tank to wait to drop stance until the switcher has picked up the boss.


Summary
So basically when there is two guards tank swapping on a boss, when engages miss or stances are dropped early it will often mean that the threat buffer between the switching guard (the new main tank) and DPS will be very lean and the group needs to really slow down in these phases (even to just auto-attacks as the group is adapting).

In some scenarios the switching guard can be so far behind when an engage misses that when the tanking guard drops threat stance a DPS will find themselves being targeted. In these situations that DPS needs to act quickly and position themselves with the switching tank until he is able to pick the boss of them (often may result in death and a combat res needed).

Ear - don't know if this is possible scheduling wise, but I think it would be beneficial if you and Bainin have the opportunity to practice this on the turtle. You can work out times between you, but this is a super important mechanic and it's gonna need practice.

Also I know very little about tanking really, but you're going to have to think about how guardian's can generate maximum threat while they're not getting hit quite a lot in this raid. First as you identified above, you need to be generating as much threat as possible while not the active tank in a tank swap to minimise the DPS-aggro risk if engage resists. Second, from what i read the majority of Ivar's attacks are tactical with no melee component so they can't be b/p/e, meaning you'll get minimum threat chains in that fight - is this possibly happening in the balrog fight too? Finally in the gortheron fight he tiers up to crazy damage (+500% or something) so the strategy is to kite him for most of the fight. The issue is that he needs to be stopped and burned quickly at certain points, so if you don't have a good amount of threat built up while kiting, DPS will pull.

Anyway, something for you to think about going forward.

Reading through that I'd have to say it was probably the second scenario that was getting us vs. The balrog friday night. I was switching back to block stance too soon before Earval could get an aggro copy with engage - moreso than any engage misses.

A bit of practice should sort it out to run nice and smoothly with the full agro component being transfered more often.