Ok..so I was doing an experiment with Tank pets and I kept hearing about how it should be a Earth or Shadow and maybe Water.
These are all great except for one thing, except for a mana hungry special move, they do nothing for the team and if you siphon everything into Agility and Health, you are still stuck with a pet that may be able to heal itself but aside from drawing attacks, does nothing else to support the team SO..

I thought why not make my Tank a Light Tank...now before you do a face-palm thinking how stupid I must be to do something so..stupid, here is my rationale.
With a Light Tank they can still fight and have a chance to heal others at the same time then this way the fighting doesn't fall mainly on the shoulders of one pet while another tries to heal everyone else.

So I could potentially still have one pet as a Shadow which does decent damage too and another can be Water or Air.

What about equipment?
Well..since the tank still relies on Agility I can still pour Proficiency Points into Agility and Health (maybe) and use equipment to augment everything else.

With a Light Tank, Dexterity is not necessarily a thing but the equipment will help but the point being that, depending on the element it is attuned to, rather than just sitting there, taking hits and maybe healing itself (maybe) it can still be a tank and heal everyone while a Fighter can be a Water or Air and the third pet can be a Shadow since it is least likely to be attacked and can still be useful too.

Edited:

Ok..here is something interesting..my tank is now a Light Tank, it's Agility is about the same as when it was a Water Tank only now it relies on Intelligence rather than Strength and it gets creamed...interesting.

the point of tanks is to... Tank attacks. They're there to protect the other pets so they can do their thing, and survive.

Overall, I think Lights are a less common tank because if they get KO'd you've had your Tank and your healer knocked out at once. They're easier to use on sub-60 teams (mainly battle board teams) and on 60+ teams (if the light pet in question is a high-stat and has high-rank attacks, at the least.)
(also, most people want dex on their light pet for the chance at critical hit+heal from Beam and Fairy Light, which isn't something that you can as easily invest in with a light tank where you need the agi, since Light pets don't have the same defensive abilities as water and earth, or the same persistent heal-return potential as a shadow)


Water: cannot use Taunt, but has the ability to set up defensive barriers which can protect whatever pet(s) they're on and heal them when struck, as well as shield from special moves and critical hits from elites and bosses (Ice barrier, Ice Sphere), can buff their own defence (frost), and all party members' defence and quickness, while hitting all enemies (surge)

(our water tanks: Munir, 1HP/2Str/2Agi, Lahar, 3Str, 2Agi- Lahar can get away with being 3str/2agi because he's max stat, Munir needs the HP for the survivability it gives that the extra str can't)


Earth: can taunt, minor self-healing, and ability to debuff enemies (leeching strike), can damage enemies via shielding which lasts multiple turns, while ignoring critical hits and special moves (thorncoat)(and if the enemy is Taunted they don't get a choice about whether they hurt themselves that way or not), and can set up good absorption
(our earth: Vanguard, 1HP/2Str/2Agi, main party, absolutely amazing, thorncoat,,, best)


Shadow: can taunt, and self-heal, I can't really speak on how high-level shadow tanks are to use since I haven't really figured them out yet? Their focus is dealing damage and getting healing for themselves in return, but maybe because my main tank is earth and my secondary tank is water, I haven't worked out how to use them properly at this point, since they lack the shielding abilities that earth+water have and which I am used to having around)


(also, on LG pets, attack ranks can make a huge difference to things, too)

(I do use my main team's light healer Edge as a temporary tank when I get Dia or Kowlla spawned, on a light/fire/air team setup. I'd prefer to use water/fire/air, but have found Lahar struggles a bit without light support against the generic cave mobs. Without Taunt, he can't make enemies focus on him, and he's not able to keep up with defending+healing the whole team against squads of three enemies alone, for all that he's very handy against the bosses themselves)

Thanks..I know what tanks do actually but the problem I have is that most tanks do little for the rest of the party but it didn't work too well for me to have the Light Tank even though the agility was something like 1,191 and the Intelligence was about the same.

SO right now my tank is back to being Water simply because it gets the condition of Frost pretty frequently
so I turned Mangle into a Shadow so she can deal damage and be relatively safe and Regal Cutlass is still an Air.

One BIG problem though is that our pets are stuck at level 70 while some enemies are over 70+ levels and the ridiculous amount of materials and gold needed just to upgrade the useful parts of the Barracks makes it a bit discouraging.

Anyways...I need to reassess my team as I need all of them to be able to contribute and for now I will keep my tank as a water until it gets to rank 3 on it's Bolt attack.

See..a tank is great but if all it does is sit there and get pummeled then rely on one pet to do all the healing then all you have left is a battler that does all teh grunt work.
Which is why I like Water because it has strength and the Frost condition really helps.

The doen side is that the water tank doesn't heal but once it reaches Bolt Rank 3 then it absorbs 100% damage where as Earth takes a while and you have to wait until Leeching Vines Rank 4 to deal 100% damage and get healed for that amount as well.

How is defending the other party members 'doing little for the rest of the party'?
A tank stopping an elite or boss's special attack in its tracks and saving the other party members from loads of damage and/or stun/ other debuffs, and allowing them to keep attacking isn't nothing?

The only enemies that are over lv70 are the elites and bosses? And once you know their strategies they aren't, for the most-part, that hard to deal with (especially once you start getting attack ranks up.)(cave bosses can still be a pain, though)

(yes, building the base barracks is a grind, though. So many random bits of Stuff to collect)

And Air and Fire are specifically designed to be the ones dealing out the damage? It isn't grunt work, it's literally what their elements were created to do on a team? Other elements can deal damage, yes, but those two just straight up have higher damage output potential in every way, shape, and form, in exchange for not having any kind of elemental defences/healing, which is why the typical team structure exists.


(and one doesn't have to pay much attention with a good tank/healer/attacker setup, you can just trust that each pet will be doing its job and do something else like watch a video rather than having to monitor your team to make sure nobody's getting maimed by the enemies.
Even though they're max-rank, I have to pay attention when we swap to light/fire/air to go fight Dia and/or Kowlla so I can know when to heal, because the mobs can land some serious damage when you don't have a dedicated tank in place. Going around the caves with tank/healer/attacker only needs an occasional glance, namely when fighting the mycanoid enemies since they're best dealt with in a particular order)

What I was trying to convey, albeit poorly, is that if a tank can't even fight its way out of a wet paper bag then in my mind it is a hindrance because its just a punching bag so it won't deal damage.

A healer is great so long as it has the dexterity to hit something other than air which leaves the battler doing all the work.

I just want all members of the team to actually deal damage and do some healing too.

I know there has been lots of discussions about the best team and all but things have changed and so I simply thought that since the tank is going to stick its chin out then it should be able to do something with it.
However the Light Tank idea didn't pan out as I had hoped because even thought its agility hadn't changed when I changed elements, it got pummled so I went back to water, at least it can grant surge to my other part members.

I didn't mean to insult you or anything but the usual Earth, Air and Light Doesn't seem to cut it so well in the long run if your enemies levels can exceed what your pets are allowed to gain.

As a side note, Earth IS good but you have to fight a lot more and gain more rank just to do what Water can do at a lower rank.

Anyways..it's late..sort of, for me so I guess I will have to try and get enough stuff to get the armory goinf so I can get better stuff..or something.

I need coffee...