Okay, is this type of behavior normal? [Fighting over who is the main tank]

First off I am not upset, just curious to see if this is normal behavior or was it just something very isolated and rarely happens.

Second, I wanted to tank, but once he decided to be the main tank, I bowed down to him considering that he was 2 levels above me. If you actually read my post and subsequent replies, you'll see that the ONLY reason why I taunted was to save him from death as the mock healer was struggling trying to keep the dude alive. Once the aggro was off of him or became even, his health would go back up as the healer had time to heal him. Again, the healer barely ever had to touch me when I was mobbed because my health was never below 60%. I used a lot of shields and trough in med packs here and there.

Thank you for your reply

The way you talk, makes it sound like you have never been in a pug before.

Edit: If you are a tanking a pug, you have to expect the entire group is a bunch of idiots until they prove otherwise. The OP stated he saw the tank was doing a lousy a job and the ONLY other person who said anything was the other tank. Not the healer.

Kickable offense? Really? Please tell me your server, toons and faction so I can stay the *** away from you.

I think what you did was smart playing HOWEVER your mistake was that you didn't tell the group what you were going to do.

I've been playing healer in MMO for years and nothing frustrates me more than unexpected agro bouncing. It is WAY easier in almost every circumstance to focus heals on one person than it is to try to heal people that aren't supposed to have agro.

It is a common MMO practice to "off tank" (as a form of crowd control) which is what you were doing but it is only a good idea if you warn your healer and the other tank so they don't waste a lot of time and abilities trying to figure out you have that agro on purpose and don't need rescued.

Good playing/thinking just communicate more and you are golden.

Edit: And to answer your original question, if there are two tanks it would be considered normal for the higher one to tank in most cases. So although he could have been nicer about it it was not totally out of line.

It is not.

Exactly! When I played as the BH Powertech in the Thanksgiving beta, there were times where I was main tanking and as a result, my health would get in the 20% range and I was VERY happy and relieved when a fellow Tank or off tank would taunt and draw aggro away to give me time to heal.

Hell, there were times where there were two of us spec'd tanks in a flashpoint and we would take turns drawing aggro when we didn't have a healer, it was just two Vanguards and two Sentinels. He would start off and once his health got around to 30%, I would come in as the "reliever" and take over the rest since my health was at 100% just to make sure that none of us dies considering that we didn't have a healer.

Personally, the more and more I think about it, I believe this Assassin was just upset by the fact that he believes I was trying to "upstage" him when that wasn't the fact. If that were so, I would instantly taunt as soon as we started to fight. I only taunted when his health became low to save him because we really didn't have a REAL healer, just a ranged DPS who had 1 or 2 BASIC healing abilities. So technically, the Heroic consisted of 2 Tanks and 2 DPS. So the strategy of taking turns drawing aggro [as I described above with my Vanguard] was the better solution.

More I think about it, I should have just let him died instead of saving his butt.

You are mostly correct. I do not pug, that's why I have friends and a guild.

Bondar Crystal, same name, Empire...and please do. If you have a problem with what I said I would be most happy if you did, though it really wouldn't be an issue anyway since I don't pug.

Did you read my post? I wasn't trying to compete with him in terms of drawing aggro. I only taunted to keep him alive because he was at 10% health and we didn't have a real healer, just a DPS with 1 or 2 basic healing abilities.

What part of this do you not understand?

Let him die a couple of times, then he would turn on the healer and blame them for his inability to properly tank.

Which is why I said "he very well could have been specced for tanking (I don't know, I wasn't there)" HAD he been specced for tanking he should have been fine (getting low on health now and then isn't a problem, that's why CDs exist), if he wasn't but insisted on tanking he should have been replaced. I honestly don't get the issue here.

Again, we didn't really have a healer. Our "healer" was a level 17 Sith Sorceror who was fully spec'd in the Lighting Tree, he even told us so. However, we gave him the desinated healer role because having 1 or 2 basic healing abilities are better than none, but that still doesn't make him a viable healer. He was more DPS than anything! So technially, it was a group of 4 with 2 Tanks and 2 DPS.

In any normal circumstance yes, what you say would be correct and I wouldn't have been in the wrong. HOWEVER, that wasn't the case and our "healer" was struggling trying to keep him alive and as it went on, I found out that we did better and went through mobs quicker whenever there were 2 tanks splitting aggro and just having 2 DPS. That way the Sorceror is able to do what he does best, which is to DPS and not heal.

Had I just not draw any aggro, the level 20 Assassin would have died which would leave us basically with 1 tank and 2 DPS in a Heroic 4. Now would that have been smart?