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Howdy everyone. I'm fairly new at tanking, as I spent most of my time in 1.0 as a DPS. I've had players suggest that I should become familiar with target marking, and I'm interested in learning some strategies for it.
I already know how to map them, I'm really just seeking advice as to their placement through different battle scenarios. Also, I apologize if this has been nailed down in another thread (please feel free to redirect me if you think that it's needed).
As a PLD, I just mark them as the situation dictates, and aggro things as the situation dictates.
Basically I have the "square" mark on my hotbars, and throw that on either the mob I am going to spend most of my time attacking, or the current priority target. I personally find it faster than the 1-2-3-4 order marking.
That said, if the marked target just died, you marked your next target, but the 3rd target is going down much faster... well that means there's more dps beating on the unmarked mob than the marked one, so switch to it and give it a full hate combo, then an aoe, and back to your marked target. Kind of alternate on both so your aggro remains relatively stable.
As a dps, namely BLM, I have a macro to automatically target my tank's target. However due to tanks often switching targets midfight, or switching off after the pull for various reasons, the assist-macro method is not always ideal. So as a dps, having a mark that says "hit this first, or hit this more than other things" does help.
With a competent team you hardly ever need to mark more then a single mob at a time. Just mark the next focus target a second before the first dies. Some times you need to use a cc mark if your strat/group is designed around ccing a single mob out of a group.
You don't need to mark more than 1 mob.
/mk cross
Just mention at the start of a dungeon to attack the target marked with an "X" and switch the mark when the mob is near death.
Then for DPS:
/ta <cross>
So the target the marked target as targeting the target of the Tank is inefficient.
So essentially I just need to pull, overpower and/or flash, hate combo, and mark the pulled target for DPS. From there I can move on to stabilizing the rest of the mobs, and marking each anchored mob as I go.
Mark the first target to be focused before you engage the mobs.
Yes, though it helps to mark the initial target beforehand.
In later dungeons there will be mobs that you want to kill first, normally ones that throw around ground aoes, or ones that get a huge damage buff after being in combat for a time.
Plus dps often dont like to wait, so give them a target, and be ready to provoke it if needed. That said, a smart dps should learn how to watch hate meters so they dont overaggro.
Again using myself as an example, if I get a few firestarter procs and find my aggro outpacing the tank's, then I will get my aggro bar to ~85-95% of the tank's bar, then switch to a different mob for a bit... since I essentially cant hit that particular mob anymore, or things will get messy. In the event that there is only one mob to target... well, most tanks do not have aggro problems on single mobs. But if your dps significantly outgear you, then its on them to either hold back a bit, or to outaggro you and know that they intentionally pulled off the tank, and now they have to tank the mob.
I also want to make a general comment about some endgame fights, and the tank's responsibilities when dealing with multiple add spawns...
It is not the tank's job to hunt down every single add spawn in a boss fight, while healers spam group heals and dps blow things to kingdom come. Often times if one add spawns, and it is really big, then it should be tanked by a tank. If there is an add spawn which consists of 4 small, say humanoid mobs, then they are most likely "normal" mobs, not group mobs, and hit for 50-100 damage, and will die in 5-7 hits from a single dps... The group will not wipe if the tank fails to hold all 4+ of them, and the boss, and the big add... etc.
Let the dps deal with small, weak adds, dps dont just fall over from being poked a few times. And as a dps, if you aggro something that pokes you for 1/3 of your health... then you should probably run that to the tank, and DO NOT HIT IT! Tanks, if a dps is kind enough to run a large add to you, please pick it up.
I have not been marking targets and so far it has worked out well.
I just find to not be quick enough to mark targets as many occasions the other players are not patient and run off ahead before me
Mind you i am still early on in the game (Just made it to Ifrit)
I just have the "1" on my hot bar. i throw a 1, shield lob, 2x flash and you should have agro. if someone is attacking anything but the one then you will just have to switch targets to keep agro, not much you can do about that. some people just tab target crap and make your life difficult. but just use flash after every couple rounds of your combination. as my target dies i just retarget my next target with a 1. most people are generally good at attacking the same target as you but sometimes you get a person who just doesnt pay attention.
I have Mark 1 bound to Shield Lob so I can mark from afar, or mark as I come in. As someone else said, DPS generally do not like to wait, even though they ALL should. Basically my opening rotation looks like this when there are 3 or more mobs.
Mark 1 Shield Lob Mob A
Flash x2-4
Fast Blade Mob A
Savage Blade Mob A
Rage of Halone Mob B
Repeat to Mob C then check Mob A Hp/Hate. Move to Mob B
Once you've secured a decent amount of Hate on Mob, it's generally hard to lose. As you can see, we come in with a mark, and drop our AoE enmity generator, then work through the mobs to generate threat on them all. Once your targeted mob is low on health, you can pretty much drop it, and start on the next one you choose while the DPS kill it. Marking helps DUR-PS's, and keeps combat flowing.