Rank II spells don't work on raid mobs? The increment from rank II to III is generally small and not a deal breaker. The only ones that are important are the buffs, because the rank IIs bounce off anyone with a rank III so they might not get rebuffed. So it is a convenience thing more than a necessity. Just get the spells when you can. If your guild is clearing RoS you should have most of your rank IIIs by now anyway. Even if it is just clearing half of RoS you would still have your most commonly used ones. The new raids are probably going to be a step up in difficulty from RoS raids, so chances are you are not going to be getting a whole lot of spells from there unless you can already clear most of RoS anyway.
When it comes to tank healing and tank survival, yes, having the best spells does make a difference since that is what determines if you win or lose. If your MT does not die in the event (except those with a hard timer of course), you win. End of story. Having 3 of your damage dealers doing a little more dps is no substitute for having your MT/ST/TT surviving a little better. Anything that increases the chances of keeping them alive improves your chances of winning. It doesn't matter if the tank is being over healed generally, it is the spikes that count. Anything that reduces those will help. If you want your guild to advance as fast as possible you need to prioritize spells that improve healing/tanking and you want to ensure that your tanks get geared up ASAP. Anything else is secondary.
There's a difference between making something potentially easier and being necessary. With the current model, the current expansion is beatable with the previous expansion's gear. The point of the current expansion is to gear up for the next. Prioritizing gear upgrades for tanks is just hanging on to long past strategies. Overhealing is pretty much always happening. Big spikes either come from a tank missing a disc transition, a big AE which gets overhealed, or mechanics causing interruptions. Heck, we have warriors tanking raids dual wielding and with 2 handers. Yes, that's with current gear and rk III heals, but that shows that the gear and the heals are beyond what's needed in that the tanks can go DPS mode rather than full on defensive.
Seagap nailed it. For the past.... many years, the expansions were beatable without gearing up. Serverwide first (and maybe second, third) kills frequently happen without a full or optimized raid, thanks to the current flagging system. The "hard" raids just mean its well past midnight, refine the strategy a bit and beat it 16 hours later. It's NOT a gear/spell issue.
So many people from guilds that haven't beaten the expansion talking about "my poor empty spell book". Did you guys ever wonder if the higher tier raids drop the higher level spells more frequently or just ignoring that weird coincidence? I do agree raids in TBL should drop runes the same way TBM did, just so there is no reason to have to come back to ROS. #uglyornaments from raid ACH.
If your If your MT does not die you win. End of discussion. Your tanks can go dual wield or 2 hander for increased dps, but doing that compromises their survivability. I know that "tank dps" is currently a popular meta, but it is not optimising their performance as far as winning a raid is concerned. The increase in dps is trivial compared to the overall effect of decreased survival.
