/assist

Okay guys, this is maybe a holdout from my previous MMO, but it exists here, so am wondering if people use it?

In my old game, (Anarchy Online) I played a doctor, i had my main heal on first slot of hotbar, my most used special attack(doesn't really have an applicable comparison here, closest thing would be like ruin/stone here) on 2, my dot/debuff on 3, and an /assist macro on 4. Basically what I'd do entire fights is DPS, and press 4 (while targetting what i'm DPS'ing) to target whoever said mob is currently attacking, heal em, then I simply pressed it again to switch back to targeting whatever that person was attacking. I've basically adapted the same hotbar setup on my WHM, but when i mention /assist to anyone else here, they give me the O_o.


Also in almost every serious raid in AO, people would set " /assist *tank/highest DPS* " macros to their hotbars, that way everyone only has to press one button to target the same monster. This really helps a lot when you need people to take down adds fast, because you dont have half the raid picking their own add to kill.

My question is.....why don't people use this? Or do they? I dont mean this like "you are all stupid for not using it" at all, I just want to know if there's any reason I *shouldn't* be using it. It may not work with ranged DPS, because it may rely on the auto-attack to know what the target is fighting, but I really haven't noticed any such issue yet. Thanks in advance for feedback, or if not, hopefully I alerted someone to the existence of /assist....because seriously....its got a lot of applications :P

One reason that quickly comes to mind for why not use /assist on tank to pick the target is that tanks keep cycling the enemies to give each of them some enmity, while damage unless using heavy AoE, hopefully keep all hitting the same monster. Since in fight you hopefully only need to heal the tank anyway, your /assist macro would get back to the tank with it, but not necessarily back to the right monster. For targeting macro purposes though, you can actually make a macro for '/target <attack1>' which targets the mob marked with target1 icon (same for all the marking icons). Obviously it only works if the tank is using the attack marks though.

Well, I have a macro with Cleric Stance to switch hotbars. If you think about it, It wouldn't hurt to put this assist along - It would switch target to the enemy when I use it and when I remove Cleric it would go back to the tank, as long as he has the enmity... I'll test it later today and come back with my opinion.

Why not just set the Target of Target keybind to something close to home position, like [T]?

Keybinds that have macro equivalents, but for which keybinds really are a must:

• Set focus target
• Target current focus target
• Target nearest NPC or object
• Target nearest enemy
• Target the target of your current target (assist target)
• Face target (spam it during cast time abilities to prevent interruption)

Also, if you're acquiring target via assist, don't assist the tank; assist DDs in the order of MNK/DRG/NIN, MCH, BRD, SMN, BLM.
The tank isn't necessarily targeting the thing everyone should be killing, and BRD, SMN, and BLM prolly don't want you killing whatever they have DoTs on, and BLM definitely doesn't want you killing whatever he's about to cast Blizzard IV on.

To be honest, I didn't kniw assigning focus target has a keybind, thanks for that bit ^^. Though I usually do use my focus targeting macro which actually focuses my tanks target. On big bosses where the boss cast bar matters, where tanks is usually tanking the boss, that's quick way to get the boss on my focus while I often have the tank as target.

I think you're probably best off to just macro your dmg spells to use targetoftarget <tt> then target <t> so you can keep targeting the tank or dps and hit their target and still have the ability to target and dmg mobs normally with the same button. Macros lose the spell queing capability but due to the amount of time healers spend dpsing its unlikely to make much of a difference once you factor in target switching without macros.

I have a google doc with some notes on macros for healers that's not directly related to this but people find useful. You can find it here if you like.

I use assist all the time. Really helps to switch back and forth quickly before a TB or if I let the tank get low. I use it on my L3 on my ps4 controller.

thanks for input guys. you're definetly right about tanks swapping targets frequently, in cases like that i'm generally using it on the mobs to target tank after dottin/dps'in, not so much the other way around. I also didn't know about the <tt> thing, I guess that's pretty much the same thing. For me a lot of it is just muscle memory, i think if i tried to heal with any other setup i'd probably be constantly pressing whatever's on my 4th hotbar slot :P

On a keyboard, the T key will do exactly what /assist does (swap targets between focus).

I'm not sure if there's a controller option as well, but if there isn't, you can just make a macro like the posters above me suggested.

I started MMOs with EQ and every MMO I played since has had some sort of assist function, so I'm with you that it feels weird to not see it as widely used. I use it all the time, keeping in mind the tank may swap targets. But it's great to quickly get back to the tank from targeting the mob if I'm DPSing.