Loading ...Marking: You’ve probably forgot you could do it.
Long time readers will remember a slideshow I did back in May on Marking targets. I’m here to remind you that, you know… you can still do that.
Pace
If there’s one thing that’s extremely noticeable between experienced and novice tanks is Pace. That ability to keep the run going at a consistent pace is huge and is the difference between clearing an instance in 20 minutes and it feeling great and clearing the same instance in 20 minutes and it feeling like work. Setting up Marks on every pull create a natural pace and most importantly give your healer a few seconds to sneak out of combat. You may have forgot this, but with the potion change to WotLK your Healer isn’t going to be able to use more than 1 if you permanently keep them in combat.
Focus
Even if you’re AOEing like crazy on a run, the AOEers will still always have a spell, shot or strike that’ll be landing on something. Being able to control where that goes is huge and will make the run much, much more comfortable for you. (…and them)
CC, an Option
Particularly Hex which can withstand a considerable beating before breaking due to damage, Marking targets gives your DPSers the option of CCing something, but more to the point it identifies what NOT to CC in case of an additional group of mobs during a pull. After all, the majority of us simply don’t know every heroic like the back of our hand yet so pulling patrols that you’ve forgotten about is very easy not to mention melee getting feared into a nearby pack isn’t uncommon either. (I should note that this is your fault for not knowing to pull that pull backwards a bit, not theirs for trying to kill a mob that they didn’t have a fear escape for)
Nothing New
That’s right… Pace, Focus, CC. Nothing new to read here, but don’t lie to me, even though you know this stuff… you aren’t doing it. Not nearly as much as you used to and that’s the difference between waiting to rez the rogue or running back from an unnecessary 3 pull and completing the run flawlessly. Let me step down from my soap box to join you because I’m guilty of it too. It’s simple really… do you want be lazy and run back or take a few seconds before each pull to mark, actually make gold from a run and do it faster?
December 8th, 2008 at 8:55 am
I only mark the one or two targets in a pull I want to die first, otherwise everything stays unmarked. I’ve noticed that even doing just this has helped make the situation much more controllable then when I wasn’t marking anything at all.
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Vrathmat reply on December 9, 2008 7:49 pm:
Yep, this is pretty much exactly what I do. I feel a little guilty if I don’t mark anything. Going into BC heroics for the first few times was pure madness if CC wasn’t used and killing order wasn’t established. While I kind of miss the challenge of actually having strategy to planning out trash mob groups, I have to say I definitely don’t miss the extra time it added to the instance run just to clear said trash…
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December 8th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Yeah, I have been marking again since starting Heroics, and even having people CC. I usually only CC one mob, and it is usually with a Pally repent.
I have my mark keybound to the number pad so I can select, 1=Skull, 2=X,3=Moon etc etc. Make it much quicker to mark and keeps the run going nicely.
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Itto reply on December 8, 2008 10:07 pm:
how can i do that? forgive a newb…
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admin reply on December 9, 2008 8:01 am:
Watch the slideshow linked to at the beginning of this article, it shows you how to do it.
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December 8th, 2008 at 9:05 am
The last couple instances I have tanked have been a bit frustrating. They were a breeze, no real issues tanking, but still frustrating. Why? Because people have apparently forgotten how focus-fire works, and that a skull should maybe be burned first.
I still mark in instances, always marking a skull as focus fire target. Skull dies, I mark the next skull on the fly, etc.
I am really tired of everyone still being AoE crazy. A boomkin friend of mine takes the cake. GG for using Starfall in the spider room in Drak’tharon Keep, pulling every single spider plus popping every single egg.
Maybe I should blog for DPS: Marking: You’ve probably forgotten what it means to do focus fire.
/stopranting
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Mojin/Hawksong reply on December 8, 2008 10:46 am:
It’s a rant worth making, though. There are many times where my group just doesn’t have CC for a specific situation so I end up tanking two mobs at once. I mark one with Skull and one with X. I focus the Skull with very little effort put into tanking the X until suddenly he breaks away from me an one-shots the mage in my group. I tab-target/taunt the X only to notice the mage had been DPSing him all along.
Poor tanking or healing is immediately visible, but there are heroics in Northrend that will bring to light poor DPSing and I’m afraid it’s going to turn a lot of groups sour.
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Pyroshen reply on December 8, 2008 1:05 pm:
Marking skulls on the fly is a bad idea, since it makes it harder for dps to know where to go next (they have to wait for you). Better to assign up to 3 targets in order (Skulll–>X–> triangle) before you start pulling.
This also lets you get a threat lead on X since you know its next while letting triangle only eat your thunderclaps.
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Hao reply on December 8, 2008 3:59 pm:
actually i’m thinking of doing this as well. I tried what kadomi was doing at first, but nobody follows my skull marking.. This is probably because they have given up on trying to find the skull in the mass of mobs that I collect. I’ll most likely announce “focus fire” and have them go in order to what I specify or announce “aoe” and have them aoe the group down.
Orenus reply on December 9, 2008 12:26 pm:
I remark Skull throughout the fight, but I try to make sure I do it before the original skull is completely dead. That way, the DPS can move right on to the next skull w/o hesitation.
Of course, people still frequently ignore my marks, even the skull I put up ahead of time.
December 8th, 2008 at 9:17 am
I’ve been marking a skull, and if there are enough mobs to worry about it an X. When we do occasionally use CC (once every 4-5 runs) I mark that also. But I’m doing this in level 77-80 instances (non heroics) since I’m still 78.
Not so much because I “have to” but because it’s part of how I control an encounter, and as a tank I’m all about that. Ironically doing this had nothing to do with survivability at all, but rather when our guild’s first toons dinged 80 I was 74 and was still tanking instances with them. Threat can become non-trivial when your DPS is 5-6 levels about you, but laying out a mark or two also let me know which mobs was going to need my attention next.
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Azrah reply on December 8, 2008 9:30 am:
Marking isn’t only for the DPS, I do it for myself aswell. When I’m tab targeting/clicking through 4 mobs, it’s nice to know which one the people are focussing their DPS on. (ofcourse it’s visible by the health bar going down a lot faster, but still, visual orientation really helps!)
For example the last part of an Old Stratholme run, there’s a whole bunch of mobs with a few elites in it. I mark the elites and aggro a whole bunch, this way I know which mobs to focus on with extra threat and not only TC and SW.
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December 8th, 2008 at 9:33 am
When I am doing heroics lately, I find that we usually end up doing 3 or 4 in a row. At the beginning I always mark one target with a skull as the thing I want dead first and when its around 25%, I move the skull to the next target I want dead. I always mark the casters to die first and about halfway through the run I will say something in party chat along the lines of “As you have probably figured out, I always want the caster mobs to die first so keep focus fire on them, I am not going to bother to mark anything anymore”. Being diligent about marking in the beginning means I can be lazy for the rest of the run.
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Hao reply on December 8, 2008 4:03 pm:
I’ve been doing this as well rochelle, but as the dpsers i pug with usually start aoeing down everything if they are confused anyways, i’ll most likely announce an order beforehand and mark the group up accordingly.
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December 8th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Us tanks seem to be a sensible bunch and I dont think many have forgotten our primary role in a group is not mark then join in the DPS. I’m worried more about the other classes. Our top priest has re-specced hybrid shadow and thinks it will be fine for healing heroics and raiding …./worry.
But I’m more put out by the attitude of the Critty-Critty Bang-Bangs who just seem to have glazed over spamming AoE and are not using their brains at all. I feel like I’m waiting for someone to say “dont bother about that marking rubbish, you run in and we’ll AoE” I hope they dont or I’ll hang up my shield
Actually I want Heroics to be rock hard. Were about to start with guild this week. I want them to be the slap in the face that wakes everyone up for this trance, are the? Thats what I want for Christmas!
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Darraxus reply on December 8, 2008 10:49 am:
Well, a clothy that pulls has a good chance of being 1-shotted. Seems like I have been running with mostly plate DPS though and there arent a ton of deaths.
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December 8th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Good choice of topic. It does appear that the majority of people arent marking as they used to.
I admit that in the early 70 instances i never marked much. Although the majority of the heroics are easy, i find marking helps the whole thing go smoothly.
Has anyone else had the pleasure of a DK pulling mobs off you with Death Grip? Yes, we know DKs can tank, but please leave my mob where i positioned him
Another thing that has annoyed me is druids using knockbacks in heroics….grrrr
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rochelle reply on December 8, 2008 11:40 am:
I did a run with a fire mage who loved using blast wave, an elemental shaman who loved using Thunderstorm and a moonkin that loved using Typhoon. It was probably the most frustrating run ever. I asked repeatedly for them to stop using those abilities but they never did. I am pretty sure that by the end of the run they were just doing it because they knew it was driving me nuts.
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Beefbringer reply on December 9, 2008 5:36 am:
thats what some DPS in my guild do, for some reason they love to drive me nuts with ether over agroing a secondary or tertiary target, that involed with blast waves, death grips, fears, early stuns anything that deprives me of that extra rage or forces me to do more work.
Trouble is i think we are products of our own reputaion or skill of being able to deal with it, other less skilled tanks in my guild don’t get this kind of abuse.
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Hao reply on December 9, 2008 2:39 pm:
My mage is frost, so I have talent points in permafrost. I usually use blizzard and sometimes pull mobs, but I have frost nova and the slowing effects from the cold so if I pull, i can blink to the tank and frost nova there (like dropping off a package) or kite the mob around and kill it. So nice being a frost mage
.
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Zyler reply on December 9, 2008 1:30 pm:
“Has anyone else had the pleasure of a DK pulling mobs off you with Death Grip? Yes, we know DKs can tank, but please leave my mob where i positioned him :(”
I run with a DK farily often and this is actually one of my favorite things they can do. My DK will use it whenever a ranged mob decides to stand back and cast on me or whenever I miss a mob and it goes after my healer. I just keep vigilance up on the DK and it makes taunting stuff back very easy.
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December 8th, 2008 at 10:42 am
The problem I see lately is all the face rolling tanks that are out there now. People that rolled a different class because they had no talent are now tanking again since blizz has dumbed down all the tank classes, and we have this flux of DPS that have gotten used to face rolling right along with the noob tanks. Their bad habit of attacking whoever they want really puts the breaks on a fast and easy run. I find myself running back and forth taunting targets that should be standing next to me. The knock back druids have is really nice, but only in the right situations…if anything, it has limited who I run heroics with & there is a growing void of talent vs. idiots…lots of people just don’t listen anymore thinking that they can just dps their way out of trouble and it leads to stupid wipes
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mavfin reply on December 8, 2008 5:14 pm:
I tell DPS that if they pull it twice, they can keep it, I’ll pick it up again if they die. That cuts down on DPS stupidity a lot, usually. If they don’t get it after that, I bail.
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December 8th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Great point to rehash. I am just beginning to tank heroics in Northrend and have gotten away from committed marking through regular instances. It will be important to apply these techniques when running with less experienced players or when an instance/pull gets tough. Time to get some practice in.
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December 8th, 2008 at 11:53 am
In guild runs we mark. Always. In PUGs the marks get placed, then ignored.
We did UK in a PUG - tank (me) and healer were 70, everyone else was 74+ We had many wipes because people were ignoring the marks. The same healer and I (still 70) took 3 guildies (72-73 level) into The Nexus and it was a much, much, smoother run. We did wipe, but because of the challenging mobs, not because DPSers were attacking the wrong mobs.
My point - mark, mark mark!!!
One question - what exactly is the potion change that’s messing with the healers?
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Jacob reply on December 8, 2008 12:25 pm:
It used to be that you could drink a potion every two minutes. Healers would typically chain-drink mana potions, which significantly increased their mana on long fights.
Potion mechanics have changed, and you can only drink one potion per combat now. One effect is that your healers need to be more conservative with their mana.
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December 8th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Some people in groups want to CC, others don’t. As always, you’ll get the overzealous DPS that wants to toss that Ice Lance and keep things going at their Pace. If you want to speed things up or slow things down, its really in your control.
Sometimes I start off with CC then look at the speed at which things die and how easily the healer keeps up with multiple mobs hitting me. Often it will depend on the type of mobs, instance or group makeup.
Another good thing to discuss in pacing of groups… is Charge. More often than not, you’ll move forward and pull back. However, I like to give myself room to Charge, so I backpedal. You only need to move back if you want to charge to where you want the mobs or if a pat is incoming, etc. A lot of DPS wail on a mob as soon as you shoot/throw something at it.
As to marking… if you want to kill a Caster in a group 2nd, or 3rd… instead of 1st. You should still pull that mob with Heroic Throw, instead of whatever you mark with “Skull.” Why? Well, if you are pulling them back or even just going to charge in… its nice to have that first spell not being cast on you or anyone in your group. Can also let you build up more rage and waste less on an early Spell Reflect. (This is of course, assuming you have points in “Gag Order”)
If people “ignore” marks and decide to go all “Han Solo” on you… let them Die. I mean, ask them to focus fire FIRST… but if they don’t listen… let them die, hell, even if it means letting the whole group die. They’ll soon realize that your way is faster than running back or getting a rez constantly.
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December 8th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
The regular instances were so easy that I didn’t bother but I use marks most of the time in raids or heroics. It takes a few seconds to do but even if all the dps uses AOE it helps me keep track on all the mobs when I start tab targeting. Azjol Nerub doesn’t give me enough time to mark much of anything, which could be why that heroic keeps kicking my butt.
My pet peeve is when people think an instance needs be completed in some sort of record time to be a success. I don’t like to feel rushed and often want to think about the next pull a little bit. I enjoy the strategy of making a pull the easiest it can be. I don’t wait for the healer to be at full mana but I do make sure he/she is at least 60%. My alt is a healer so I know what it is like from that angle as well.
When you turn in your Emblems of Heroism the gear vendor doesn’t seem to care how fast or slow you ran each heroic.
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Cleaved reply on December 8, 2008 10:22 pm:
I tell people… Faster = Slower, more often than not… after they cause a wipe by trying to break some kinda record.
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December 8th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I only mark skull for the mob I want to die first then its FFA from there. If there is a situation where a certain mob has to die 2nd then I also mark it.
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mavfin reply on December 9, 2008 1:55 am:
That’s pretty much where I am, until they hit hard enough I can’t tank them all at once, then it’s time for CC marks.
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December 8th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I use my num-pad as raid mark keybinds, that way, I can just push 0 for skull, 1 for x, etc… this makes it a lot faster to move and mark on the fly.
If we get a surprise, like the forgotten pat that comes around the corner, I can quickly mark with a skull and focus group fire on that target. keybinds and raid markers are all on the wow interface, no macros are necessary.
fubs
ps… this was a hint given to me by another guild tank, Quattre.
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December 8th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
For marking, I just wanted to recommend people grab Magic Marker. You do need to configure priorities for mobs so that it marks everything correctly, but once done, you only have to hold down a bind key(mine is shift) and mouse over all the mobs in the pull to have it fully marked correctly. While great for marking any pull, I always found it particularly useful on a mispull, to mark everything while in the fray so to speak.
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Chet reply on December 10, 2008 11:57 am:
I need to give MM another shot. I use Quickmark to make things a little faster. I’m on a laptop so I don’t have the numpad to use for keybinding marks, so QM helps, but the only time I used MM I didn’t take the time to learn how to use it, so it got in the way as much as it helped.
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December 8th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
I run a heroic every night after raid with mostly the same people. The first heroic I did I brought a boomkin… AOE push backs FTL. I hate them it runs it when I have the knack to TC as he pushes them away. Besides taht though, usually I run with Shaman, warrior, rouge, (caster often lock) and shaman healer. The runs go by quick and easy usually and I only ever mark a Skull and X.
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December 8th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
I’ll generally use some marking, but not until closer to the end of most heroics. CC doesn’t exist for me until after the 3rd boss when it comes to Halls of Lighting. Fun times!
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December 9th, 2008 at 1:09 am
Marking, Single target DPS, and CC are all pre-3.0 concepts. You shouldn’t need them now like you didn’t need them at 70. I’m not even kidding, instances are now so hilariously easy and survival is so hilariously high that while these things will help, certainly, they shouldn’t be necessary at all.
To answer your question, I’d rather make gold from run, do it faster, and not spend the second to mark. I have every raid target macroed so it would take about a third of a second to mark, but it adds up over time, and what’s the point when you can just charge? Who cares if you get a second group, or a third, or a fourth? Shockwave. Shield block. Pro tip, shield block is better than shield wall.
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mavfin reply on December 9, 2008 1:58 am:
That all depends on your gear state. If you’re assuming Sunwell gear to start, and you’re in Naxx gear already, sure, you can do that. However, if you are, then you’re living in an entirely different life from us mere mortals who don’t have that much time to devote to WoW. We have fun, it just takes a few more weeks to get to the same places!
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Psy reply on December 9, 2008 2:24 pm:
I disagree.
If you’re running L80 heroics, there’s a spectrum. On the low end are people that have all greens, from questing. People that skipped the group quests that give blues, and are dancing around with 17000 HP. On the high end, you have people in full epics from naxx25/Maly25. The middle of the spectrum is people that have mostly blues, from questing, from pre-80 dungeons, from heroics, etc.
I’d say, if 90% of your gear is blue, you can lawl your way through heroics with AOE spam and mistakes and comedic insanity. If all of your gear is leveling greens, you can still do heroics, but you have to put some thought into it.
Also, if 90% of your gear is blue, you can start clearing raids, and once 2-3 pieces of your gear is epic, you can clear all raid content in the game.
That includes crafted epics.
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December 9th, 2008 at 1:59 am
very seldom there is a group that needs a mark… for example the spiders with shadow bolt in ahn kahet, better down them first. most heroics are fine without marking, the groups are smaller then in BC, you only hit on 5 mobs when someonen screws up and pulls adds. i usually just aoe-tank everything in my path and give an occasional shield-slam or revenge at the mobs that are being focused. giving that new skill that reduces threat on your top DD and use that glyph with the second sunder on your regular 5-man heroics. TC and shock along with some revenge will do the job, i even took the titan shield spike off my shield. and well 20-yard taunt ftw… RIP intervene.
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rochelle reply on December 9, 2008 8:52 am:
I actually like to leave the spell flinger in Ahn’Kahet alone. I tell my group to go ahead and let him cast. I set the guy as my focus so that I can watch his cast bar while tanking other stuff and then spell reflect his big nuke and it takes off around 80% of his HP. Sure it might be easier to just keep interrupts on him and burn him down quickly, but I just can’t resist the urge to be a little flashy.
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admin reply on December 9, 2008 8:56 am:
Ya, I have to admit spell reflecting for 50,000+ damage is pretty sexy.
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Steele reply on December 10, 2008 7:46 am:
yeah i feel you
did that too on my first 2-3 runs in ahn kahet and had nice luls. but nowadays im so bored of heroics i just wanna go through as fast as possible, so i mark those a skull and keep it safe & clean. i think i read somewhere that the dmg those mobs pull off is based on your hp, its supposed to take exactly 50% off your hp. didnt bother to figure out if its true, just something i read somewhere.
December 9th, 2008 at 3:35 am
i have found that marking a skull on pretty much all pulls is good, as it gives the classes with limited aoe a focal point, and you can pretty much cleave+tc+sw with a revenge or so on each mob to keep your aoe’ers at bay. the new default threat thingy (losing threat, changed target etc) is very useful for when people get strings of crits on their aoe, can just switch off skull and do a quick shieldy and your fine. Also, i find i constantly switch targets when skull is under control and have a quick look at omen, if someones coming up, dump a shieldy or rev on it, if not, just a dev or leave it even. makes things very much easier when your aware of the multitude of information around you.
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December 9th, 2008 at 6:01 am
I mark in every Heroic I have run so far (22 emblems … not to many runs as you can imagine).
Marking for me is like telling a bunch of new borns to stand. THEY NEVER LISTEN. Pugs are disgustingly bad for Incompetance. I nearly always to to include 1 or 2 of my close friends to come (Paladin and Druid DPS *.
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December 9th, 2008 at 8:25 am
One way for tanks to try to take control is to mark one mob skull… ask your group to kill skull then aoe.
You should be able to get enough threat to hold multiple targets while they kill the skull.
Also if there is a ranged melee or caster that wont come over…. Mark that one for CC if CC is available. Otherwise move the mobs over to it or find a LoS spot.
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December 9th, 2008 at 8:26 am
I have been marking a skull and sometimes an X if I really want something to die next. What I’ve noticed though is 99% of the dps I’ve ran with lately completely ignore the second mark and just hit the closest mob to them. I really have just been doing my normal thing for most of skull’s life and then just tab looking for the mob that a dps is close to my aggro, shield slam revenge+heroic strike (I love that glyph), and then move onto looking for the next mob.
I’ve noticed the only CC that have been begging to use it are Shamans and Pallies.
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December 9th, 2008 at 9:04 am
On a completly unrelated note, I noticed that you have some poll options for what I want to read next. I was actually thinking that a tank enchant breakdown would be good with all of the new enchants.
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admin reply on December 9, 2008 9:09 am:
http://www.tankingtips.com/tanking-enchants-reference/
Shhh… don’t tell anyone
Priorities on those are in the works, but as you can see from my “backdoor” research… there’s not a lot of choices atm.
p.s. Darraxus, your comment was the site’s 5,000th. Thank you
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Darraxus reply on December 9, 2008 10:44 am:
Lol, thank you and you are welcome!
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December 9th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Lets not forget the other methodology, which is having a designated Main Assist. Having your DPS set up a /assist Fred macro and using it religiously, along with a Main Assist you can trust, can really push along just as well (maybe better) than marking.
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December 9th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Unfortunately this is by no means necessary when you run with your all-clearing guild where most are almost full epic.
In TBC, heroics hurt sometimes even for fully epic groups, I just tell the tank to move on and pull a few packs to aoe, while I heal him. Such a difference from when I tanked through TBC.
I miss it.
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December 9th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Actually, in terms of pace, in regular instances, I usually have so much threat built up over most dpsers that when the mob I have is at about 20% and if the healer mana is ok, then I charge to the next mob while still in combat. I lub that talent. Chain pulls go quickly and smoothly and the mob that I was tanking before usually follows me while the dpsers are doing their thing.
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Cchem reply on December 17, 2008 5:05 pm:
Same here, just stun it first with concussion blow - it looks so proffessional if you can judge for around 3 seconds left of dps…there’s just something really sweet about flying off leaving the mob where it is and going for the next pack!
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December 9th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
I had a DK the other night not only ignore my marks, but he would use his chain pull ability that reminds me of scorpion on MK to pull a mob away from me. I would just turn my screen so I could watch him just to be ready to intervene on the healer if the DK went down. The healer was too nice though and kept him alive.
Then the jackass rolled need on leather and said he didn’t know why we had a problem with that because he was a glass canon anyway.
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December 10th, 2008 at 9:49 am
I only bother to mark what I want to see dead in first time. If I begin to see something else die before the mark, I remind them to FF them first. Normally they get the idea. Didn’t needed CC so far.
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December 10th, 2008 at 10:07 am
I’ve gotten into the habit recently of just marking things I want to be assisted off of. I run with a few funny guys that like to just shoot, fireball, stabby stabby, etc whatever if there isn’t a skull on it. All I end up donig now is just slapping a hotkeyed skulled on what I’m charging or H.Throwing directly and after it dies the next thing i end up just gets another skull and so on and so forth.
Cuts down a bit on the marking time to do it that way so places like Old strat where focus fire and time are key you can wrangle in the people who like to just attack whatever and see if they can pull off me.
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December 10th, 2008 at 11:01 am
I only mark if I have a PUG DPSer in the group. Everyone in my guild knows to kill the one I’m targeting when I engage.
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Chet reply on December 10, 2008 11:29 am:
I can’t do that. As often as not, I target my 2nd kill, or even my last kill when I pull, so that I get a little bit of extra aggro on them. Plus, unless I’m being lazy or I have a DPSer that outgears me (so I have to fight for aggro on skull), I switch targets every couple of hits to hit something that isn’t my main target, partly because that’s something I liked about tanking pre-3.0 and partly because TC still isn’t as powerful as Cons. and I like to be sure I have a good lead on threat.
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December 10th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Hey, thanks for the comment on my blog a while back - I keep meaning to get around to a reply and not managing it.
Anyhoo, I find that I’m still marking all the time - I just can’t remember how I managed before marks were introduced, way back when in Vanilla WoW. While I -can- hold aggro just with Thunderclap and Shockwave and tab-devastate, I find it’s usually quicker to bring my DPS into check and focus them on one target at a time - especially the rogues. Jesus, rogues frustrate me with “AMG i has AoE nao must use”. They’re still useless at it, but they insist on doing it. If I -don’t- bring my DPS in, I top damage meters, which is fun, but it just shows that they’re sucking, which frustrates me - I have a min/maxer brain secreted away inside.
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admin reply on December 10, 2008 3:37 pm:
Hey, I completely understand that you can’t respond to every comment, believe me! Thanks for stopping by and I totally get what you’re saying with marks… it’s kinda odd thinking about the world before when we didn’t have them.
(course we used Main Assist type practices more back then as a result)
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December 10th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I’m still running non-heroic instances, so take my $0.02 with a grain of salt.
Right now, I find that I’m marking 2-3 mobs in the first 10 pulls or so in a PUG…until I get a general sense of the calibre of players I’m working with. Then if I’ve got good players too work with, I say “kill casters first”, don’t CC, let me TC a couple of times before you start AOE” and then I stop marking. With a good healer I start chain pulling and only watching the healer’s mana. When I’ve got the last mob to 25%, I charge into the next group, etc.
If I’ve got a couple of “lolz wut, lrn 2 tnak n00b” people in my group I kindly remind them to watch their aggro, and continue marking. If they continue to be a problem, I send a whisper and ask them to “help me out by watching their aggro”. If they still continue, I whisper the healer (if I know them) and ask them not to heal them the next time they pull aggro. I don’t taunt the aggro back and I let them die. I send the same “whisper the next time and add “help the healer too”. If they continue to act out but don’t cause a wipe, I tolerate them but won’t group with them again. If they cause a wipe due to flexing their e-peen or stupidity, I replace them out of respect for people’s time.
With guildies, I don’t mark. Everyone kills the casters first and noone dies unless 2-3 bad things happen at once AND either myself or the healer gets a case of the stupids (e.g. last night I pulled without the healer…..and we still almost cleared the 5 mob pull without any death except I was frozen twice and couldn’t taunt a mob off of the ret pally).
I fully expect to mark harder heroics, especially in pugs — even good ones. If you think about it at a very high level, marking is just a system of communicating among people where an understanding of common procedures may not exist. If an understanding DOES exist, marking is unnecessary. I believe NEW content should almost always be marked.
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December 10th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
I never actually mark anything. i tell the dps to assist me. I normally take an approach to aoe tanking all trash by using dev. with the 2x sunder glyph, tclap whenever it’s up, shockwave off the go and lastly cleave. I clear heroics very quickly and chain pull constantly unless the healer lets me know they need a mana break. I never use CC, some may call me foolish for this, however it is a personal choice, most healers should be able to heal through the damage on a tank without CC if the tank is def. capped.
Oh, and as for the dps who like to aoe and think they’re smart by doing so….I tell them to focus fire at the beginning, if they begin to die as a result of them aoeing and being stupid then i simply replace them….dps are really easy to replace, especially ones who are ineffective and cause more problems then they do aid.
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Introspectiv reply on December 10, 2008 11:58 pm:
I used to never mark things in heroics and called for focus too. But there are those times where you can call out a focus and someone will do it a tad to late while your tab targeting to maximize threat on other targets and whuddaya know, split dps. I agree whole heartedly with veneretio, these marks are there for a reason and will pace the run well. Even i get all high and mighty and think “Hey, i don’t need these, I know what im doing” but you can never always control all the aspects of the game. Mis-clicks, mis-targets, whatever, can always lead to trouble with pulls. But there’s nothing wrong with bringing back the fundamentals.
also, Hi Veneretio!
I’ve seen you numerous times in Shat, Org, Dala etc.
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admin reply on December 11, 2008 7:57 am:
Heya Introspectiv, I’ve definitely seen you around Shat, etc as well. Thanks for stopping by!
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December 11th, 2008 at 2:55 am
Ive been noticing lately the people are forgeting how to assist and wonder why the add falls away from me and 2 shots them. Its so simple to just assist my target but yet some 1337 player thinks they can solo a dungeon elite. Marking is helpful for hard pulls and Heroics when they acctualy do damage but for standard trash i believe just assisting is enough.
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Vrathmat reply on December 11, 2008 9:00 am:
Assist is a nice feature, but I’ve found it’s not as useful as I thought it was back in the day. In a 3-4 mob situation, I’m changing targets pretty frequently. Doing /assist on me at any given time might put you on a mob that I’ve only thrown a couple devs and tclaps on, and not every DPS pays attention to realize they’re targeting the mob that’s still at 95% health just because I hit it a couple times.
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Bra reply on December 11, 2008 2:14 pm:
cleave, tclap and stomp (shockwave, i just call it stomp) make aoe tanking a joke. also get the glyph for def to sunder extra mob…..this is essentially how i tank and nobody rips agro at all.
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Bra reply on December 11, 2008 2:15 pm:
oh. and my character has been renamed as Graveslinger because Bra apparently is against blizz rules. gg
December 11th, 2008 at 3:10 am
Hello, i am with bra, i dont mark much at all, not if i run with my guild anyway, i trust them and know they assist me, and for aoe, you should be hold kinda good with aggro on all mobs with TC cleave and shockwave, anyway imo. and yes if they dont stop and take the aggro i am sure they dont care if they die or not just try to top dps list. i mark for raids more then i do for heroics, =) guess i am to lazy. haha
Take it easy, bye
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December 11th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Wow, good info about the shaman CC. I didn’t realize it could take damage before breaking. I’m not sure why I thought it would instantly break just like a sheep!
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December 11th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
I got so lazy marking things for quite a while and thankfully at least mark a skull now.
Anyone else ever noticed that when you don’t mark something in a 5 man, with 3 DPS theres an amazing tendency for them to each choose a different target and never the same one. Makes things very interesting but also keeps you on your toes.
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December 12th, 2008 at 4:11 am
I usually mark all of the mobs of a pull: this way ppl can SEE all of the adds that will come.
Anyways, i ALWAYS mark with Skull the add that should be killed NOW. If that add was before an X, or an star, it doesn’t matter: my DPS ppl always focus on Skull.
How do i do this? Easy: i mark the add before they kill the previous one. This gives me time to build aggro on the new one, and the other ppl know who’s next to kill.
For that,I use another keybinding for Skull. I have, normally, when I pull off combat, 0 to Skull, dot to X, … But i have another one: alt - central mouse button. This way, without moving my hand away from the mouse, i can mark Skull again, so it is as easy as:
1. Mark initially all the mobs. Assing CC to some of them, etc.
2. Tank Skull.
3. When Skull is about to die, I switch my target to the next (usually the X), and ALT-Central mouse button it, to assing a Skull to it.
4. When DPS kills the previous Skull, they can perfectly see who is the next Skull. So they switch DPS to it.
5. And so on
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December 12th, 2008 at 6:43 am
once u hit a certain gear lvl in wotlk, all u should need to do is slam ur skull.. tc, shockwave and tab tank.. this has been more then enuf to hold agro for me in every heroic and raid thus far released
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December 16th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I use the “targetingicons” add-on and have no issues with quickly marking mobs. I totally agree with the author, there is no reason not to mark in a heroic or raid. It aids in communication, reduces the chances of mistakes and makes things go much smoother making the whole run that much more enjoyable.
The tanks role is to make sure every hit lands on him, period. If a bad guy gets by and one-shots a healer, there is no one to blame but the tank. Marking things to make sure that everyone is on the same target and no one is pulling aggro who shouldn’t be, is simply smart playing. All the “I don’t bother to mark anymore” comments seem to be coming from people who probably wouldn’t accept the blame when the raid wipes.
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