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Good day! I am playing as a tank for the first time ever and I am preparing myself to be a well organized and all around enjoyable tank to play with.
During my research I have had read several people complain about using the numbering system, "the numbers make screen cluttered", "it's useless if you have a good team", etc. Some say it's not even useful to use until level 30.
So I wanted to get input as to how useful it is and when or where to use it. Thanks in advance.
Depends on the group but myself as a dps i would say i much prefer if the tank numbers targets. Some dps i will admit are tunnel visioned and do not pay attention to which target tank is focused on.
Too bad you are not on Leviathan, our FC would of helped you ought
number 1 on the target you are focusing is all that is really needed 90% of the time.
change the number to the next mob when the one you had it on falls to 15% or less.
Depends on which tank class and relative gear level.
Example 1:
WAR tank with equivalent to better gear than dps can mostly get away with not marking at all
Example 2:
PLD with gear not as good to significantly worse than dps should mark just about everything
I find it very useful if the tank numbers the targets, when I'm Playing DPS, even in the lower level dungeons. That way I have no guesswork, I can follow along with out worrying about messing up the tempo of the fight.
Marking targets is definitely the most efficient thing to do. A good DPS will always notice which enemy you are targetting without them, but...most DPS are not good.
If you don't mark targets, you will notice that in any pull of 3-4 enemies, the DPS will all attack different things. It is much less efficient and makes things harder for the healer.
It's better to err on the side of marking. Most groups either want them or don't care, as long as it doesn't take you too long to do it. As you get more experience, you'll get a feel for when you need to mark and when you don't. I generally start out marking, then drop it if it seems like the group can handle things without it. Then pick it up again if it turns out I was wrong.
You can also just ask your groups if they want you to mark or not.
If you're grouping with random people you don't know I'd encourage using it. For packs of two I only mark one mob, packs of three 1 and 2. Sometimes I'll mark a 3rd in 4 packs but usually by that point in the encounter AoE damage and such will have them ticked down and I will have substantiated enough threat that it really doesn't matter what happens after the first two mobs are dead. Smart DPS will usually migrate to the one with the least amount of HP for any unmarked mobs.
Now if only I could solve that mystery of why Archers/Bards think the mob marked 2 is exclusively for them...
Thank you guys for your input. Glad I asked, seems like numbering is more useful then originally thought. =)
When tanking I usually mark all but 1 mob on a pull (unmarked defaults to last). I just find it keeps things orderly for the DPS. I've played a lot more DPS than tanking and I always much preferred marked targets, so that's what I do when I tank. As a tank I've noticed that if I don't mark something people just attack whatever. Sometimes I'd see the DPS change targets because they saw me using Butcher's Block or similar on other targets to get an enmity lead and thought they were attacking the wrong enemy. I've even seen instances where we're all attacking different things and keep switching targets at the same time to try to all attack the same thing, but fail. Kinda funny, really.
Basically marking never hurts as long as you do it quickly and sensibly (as in prioritize the mobs that have annoying aoe or do the most damage). At it's simplest you can macro 1 onto tomahawk/ shield lob to always mark your pulled target as one and then mark during battle as needed.
I think it's generally clearer to go with the numbers. If you're sticking with a single target yourself, then the DPS at least have the possibility of choosing their target based on what you're attacking, but if you're rotating your attacks between different targets (which can help you make sure you maintain aggro on all of them) then expecting the DPS to identify which target to focus on based on what you're attacking doesn't work so well.
Even if you do mark the mobs though, there are times when a DPS may deliberately cycle through them rather than following the numbers. If I'm playing a DoT heavy class like arcanist and the fight is easy enough not to put any strain on the healer, I'll cycle through all the mobs putting my DoTs in place. Ruin spam when all mobs have all DoTs is the only part that I'll focus on the first numbered mob, but while there's lots of mobs just maintaining the DoTs may take most of my time. Keeping the DoTs going on all of them is a bit more time efficient than Ruin spam in terms of how long it's going to take to drop the entire group of mobs.
(On a difficult fight, however, where it's more important to quickly drop the first mob or two in order to reduce incoming damage, I'll focus on mob 1 until it's down. I'll also focus on mob 1 if I've noticed from previous mob groups that the tank is having a hard time maintaining aggro against my DoTs-on-everything pattern. It depends on the group.)