How does the Main Assist work?

[savaughn]

Anyway, that's a lot of rambling, but my question is this:  should we use the pet as an offtank, and fight the guy that he is tanking?  Or should we continue to use him as crowd control?  Or will he be useless in strat/scholo/DM/etc.?
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Under normal circumstances, I would say "Yes, use the bear as your Main Assist."

There are two concepts at play here. First, damage consolidation. Damage dealing in WoW is integral. You keep taking the same amount of damage until you kill off one of your attackers. As such, the faster you kill off mobs, the less overall damage you take. The hunter's pet's damage is not inconsequential and having that damage included on the MA target can save the party hundreds of points of damage, which translates into less mana required from the healer, less chance for the healer to pull aggro (since the pally can't keep aggro as well as he should), and better happier party life.

The second concept here is damage conservation. Between you, the bear, and the hunter, either the hunter or the bear wins for highest armor. The hunter does much less damage as a tank, however, so is probably not as effective a tank choice as the bear. The end result is: if a rogue in leather is being the MA and draws aggro, the total damage from that mob is reduced by leather (aka wet cardboard) instead of the higher damage reduction of the pet. Once again, less overall damage taken = fewer heals from priest = better happier party life.