Target Marking Tips For Tanks

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.

I was wondering if its possible to macro in 'Target Forward' and 'Target Back' to do a quick splash of enemy's and give them marks 1,2,3 or just 1 and 2. Anyone found a way to do any macros that mark more then one target quickly?

this works well for me, but the targeting system rationale escapes me and it sometimes marks enemies 2, 3, and 4 as mobs farther away than the most nearby ones. It does, however, select the nearest mob as #1 though.

/targetenemy
/mk attack1
/wait 1
/ac "Target forward"
/mk attack2
/wait 1
/ac "Target forward"
/mk attack3

Well, on another look at the targeting rationale: it reliably picks the nearest target to me and then selects targets from the Left to Right, no matter their distance.

I think peps went for how to mark, to his question tho I think he is asking what should he mark to kill 1st.

Generally here is how I do it,

Casters,
Melee,
Tank like targets.

Casters I feel are the biggest threat because we don't mitigate beyond shield oath what damage they do to PLDs, so I like to get those out of the way 1st,

Melee targets are usually hit hard, or hit often, so they usually need to die 2nd,

Tank like targets have a huge HP pool compared to the other mobs in the back, but generally don't hit really hard, so killing these last is what I ask my party to do.

I prefer to assign a melee dps lead. He does the marks and I just make sure I'm number 1 on the threat meter for his target. Everyone else in the group assists him. There isn't really much content that requires marking yet anyways. Game is to young and easy. Turn 4 maybe?

For my 5c I have to say I HATE people using squares and X, etc as marks, I have no idea wtf that means.

When I tank I number my mobs with the numbering marks, the meaning of the marks are clear and universal. I think for a Tank the much more important thing to do is to learn the order of marks for a given group of mobs. The general rule of thumb i follow is Healers->Casters->DPS(other)->Tanks. Of course learning what is what will take a couple of runs. That being said, many dungeons, specially the lower level ones, the order you kill things doesn't matter so much and later on when everyone is geared in awesomeness then again it doesn't matter too much.

I've got my marks hotkeyed on my numpad, so I just really tab through my enemies and press my numpad keys to mark 1 - 5. I don't understand why most tanks I've seen in DF don't mark, as it really makes your life, and that of the DPS and healer a lot easier. (provided people follow the marks, of course)

Anyway, my marking order depends on whether or not we have someone who can sleep enemies in our group. If we do, unsleepable mobs get kill priorty. If not, it's healers > casters > melee.

I'll echo the "Don't use X" comment above.
It can get confusing especially if there's a language barrier between teammates. "Attack1" should be universally understood.

You're a Tank. You basically need to tell the DD's what target they should be focussing on.
This is NOT THE SAME as the target you're currently attacking, since you should be alternating targets regularly in order to keep solid hate on multiple foes.

If you're lazy and/or play using a controller and have problems juggling a lot of macro commands, then all you need is a "/mk attack1 <t>" macro.
Whenever you're about to engage a group of foes, target whichever foe you want the DDs to focus on and press the macro.
Once that first foe is about to die, target the NEXT foe you want the DDs to focus on, and use the macro again.

That one marking macro should get you through the vast majority of the game without any problems or whinging from teammates

If you want to raise the bar a little bit, you can set up a few more macros to help your teammates out more. Example:
"/mk attack2 <t>" (so you can mark the ORDER in which you want DDs to take out the first two targets. Once Target #1 dies, you can re-mark #2 as #1 and pick another foe to mark as #2)
"/mk bind1 <t>" (set this on a foe that you want the WHM/BLM to keep slept. Some mages will mark their own mobs, others will not bother marking them and cast sleep randomly, occasionally some will wait for "instructions".)
"/mk ignore1 <t>" (set this on a foe that you want the DDs to specifically ignore - example: dungeon boss fight phase whenever you want DDs to concentrate entirely on the spawning ads, etc.)

Save those marking commands to Macros, and pick and bind a key to trigger for each one.
It might help to also setup macros to target any previously-marked foes, and bind those same keys to trigger those targetting macros whenever a modifier (Shift, Alt, Control, etc) is held down.

I use a PS3-style controller and a keyboard. I've got character movement bound to the Controller's Left Analogue stick, which leaves the normal 4-way Directional-Pad free.
I've bound the D-Pad Up/Right/Down/Left axis to macros that mark my current target (or my mouseover target if I don't have anything currently targetted) with Attack1/Attack2/Bind1/Ignore1.
Holding down a Trigger button (in my case Shoulder Button L1 which is bound to "Control") alters the D-Pad Up/Right/Down/Left binds - they now make me retarget whatever I've already marked with Attack1/Attack2/Bind1/Ignore1.
You could do something similar with the Numpad or Function Keys and expand it if needed for the remaining mark types.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kenji1134

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 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.

---

Amen, I am lvl 50 pld, and I am still having problem with cutter's cry dungeon (first boss), as soon as the adds come out, everyone just scattered, while I was tanking the princess and trying to cut down the marshal, conj/ whm is spamming the aoe healing spell and dps are nuking whatever is closest to them down and they all expect me to grab all the mobs (5-7 mobs) at once while they are running around like headless chicken.

...Yeah, Ive done that dungeon as a PLD and BLM... I explicitly tell people, "Stack on her butt. Do not move unless its to dodge a ground effect, and if you do move, get back into position when it is safe."
This way the mobs are mostly within Flash and Provoke range of the tank, and makes aoe'ing them down easier, since the small adds hit for nothing, while the bigger adds, Marshall and the 2 big, think they are Soldiers, do need to be tanked.

My second action bar is dedicated to marking. The first 4 buttons are for attack 1-4. The fifth button sets my focus and marks with X. The sixth through eighth mark Bind 1-3. The ninth is ignore 1, and tenth is a simple macro for targeting the mob marked attack 1. All I do is tab through targets and mark as needed, then hit the tenth spot to get started. All this might seem like alot of work for trash, but it only takes a couple seconds per group to make things easier on new players. I'm all about making things easier whenever possible :)

BTW, anyone who is in too big of a hurry to wait a couple seconds per mob set will just have to learn a little patience, or learn how to tank with their non-tank class. I'm just too old to deal with the stress of regaining enmity due to someone else's impatience. I expect stress to a certain degree during boss fights, but not during every trash pull. I'm very happy to say that only two DD's have learned the hard way so far. The rest have either said nothing, or thanked me for making the run easier.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maero

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)

---

It's in your best interest to always mark your target. Yes, DDs can figure out which one your focusing on (eventually) but it really adds unnecessary confusion. It is especially troublesome when there is Sleeping involved or when you are rotating your enmity combos across multiple mobs. It's one of your strongest tools as a tank to communicate with your party, use it liberally!

I don't know if someone mentioned it, but if you pull more than 3 mobs, you mark all of them and you cycle through targets to maintain enmity on all of them, try to face a wall where there's nothing that your tabbing could catch.

And, bloodbath + Scorn = around 100 HP back.