Why mark targets?

[Jim_Berry]

To add, as a tank, I only mark one mob at a time.

I mark the one I'm pulling, then when its' health is very low, I start attacking the next mob. When the original mob dies, I simply hit my mark macro for the current mob, then rinse and repeat.

I felt that I didn't need to mark three mobs before the initial pull, and don't need to mark 2 and 3 during the battle.

One macro for one mark, then we're good to go.

[Blamebot]

Doing this in DF is a bad idea. If you have a party that is clearly experienced and want to run it at the slightly faster pace, that's great, you go ahead and do it. But doing this with random groups who've never played together and don't necessarily trust each other leads to some pretty big headaches. Especially since in most low level dungeons, you often run with at least one brand spanking new guy. You would probably spend more time explaining/arguing how to do it than actually running the dungeon normally.

But I get what you are saying. The DPS is better when you spread at least some DoTs around. It just doesn't work with every party, and I would not trust a DF party to work well with it.

[blowfin]

If DPS don't know what to attack first by the time they're 50 something is seriously wrong. Watch the tank, attack their primary target first. Not difficult. For the majority of the dungeons there's an established kill order which tanks will follow. Marking is a crutch for clueless DPS in my experience. I only do it when I notice that DPS are being chumps and attacking targets out of order. Or i'll do stuff like mark the gob that stops the birds spawning in Brayflox. English players struggle with hitting correct targets a lot more than JP players, especially in Duty Roulette.

Also, dotting multiple trash mobs is pointless.

[Coth_X]

If DPS don't know what to attack first by the time they're 50 something is seriously wrong. Watch the tank, attack their primary target first. Not difficult. For the majority of the dungeons there's an established kill order which tanks will follow. Marking is a crutch for clueless DPS in my experience. I only do it when I notice that DPS are being chumps and attacking targets out of order. Or i'll do stuff like mark the gob that stops the birds spawning in Brayflox. English players struggle with hitting correct targets a lot more than JP players, especially in Duty Roulette.

Also, dotting multiple trash mobs is pointless.

I disagree, I'll mark my targets because whether I'm having to OP x bajillion(what a fun game ; -; ) or actually getting to use other attacks, I want everyone to know what order I'm going in, especially for melee dps since their dps specifically depends on mobs facing away from them. That's where i'm dumping auto attacks, stuns, and maybe sunders, if all im doing is oping, or that's where most of my enmity dump is going if i'm getting to play the game.

Furthermore, I find while trying to level monk, figuring out the tank's primary target is annoying at best, since if the mobs are clumped up I can't depend on the targeting line, and otherwise, I have to target the tank and then target his enemy.

Why are people against communication and coordination? In an MMO?

[blowfin]

Why are people against communication and coordination? In an MMO?

I'm not against communication and coordination, I just have a problem with providing crutches for people. Basically, if you keep giving them that, they won't learn for themselves. It might sound slightly harsh but it's actually the best outcome for everyone.

Again, not saying I don't mark in certain situations, I just don't do it religiously.

Sometimes you don't even need to mark to sort things out. A simple "Could you guys please kill the Wamoura's first" does the trick too.

[Coth_X]

I just don't see how marking targets is a crutch.

[Alice_89th]

Marking may not help increasing outgoing damage, but it definitly helps decrease the incoming damage.

By quickly eliminating enemies with harmful abilities or healing skills, and/or showing which target to focus on. It shows which mob to return to when all DoTs/ other tricks are done. It prevents you DPS from attacking two different mobs, and burn down one instead. Which means less incoming damage, which means less strain on the healer, which means the healer might even have free time to DPS. It helps prevent the DPS accidently pull agro. It teaches people who are new to a dungeon certain mechanics. It teaches people who are not new to a dungeon but who didn't encounter any problems in earlier runs certain mechanics.

TL;DR: it makes a run go smoother.

I'm not against communication and coordination, I just have a problem with providing crutches for people. Basically, if you keep giving them that, they won't learn for themselves. It might sound slightly harsh but it's actually the best outcome for everyone.

Again, not saying I don't mark in certain situations, I just don't do it religiously.

But how are people supposed to learn if someone doesn't show them?
Yes you learn from mistakes, but it is a lot faster if you simply explain (by marking or otherwise) once. Marking or explaining doesn't stop them from learning to do things on their own, it helps them learn faster. It is not a crutch to help people walk, it is a roadsign to show them which direction to walk in.

Yes, this is true. Of course, the DPS are free to DoT even when marks are up. I should have clarified that, for me, marking is almost always equated with "focus down one at a time".

Except that marks don't tell you to tunel vision an enemy, but that that one takes priority. Even for DoT classes that can be helpfull. For example: I am a SMN, I will DoT the tarket marked with 1, and then use Bane to spread to the rest. This way the priority target will have a few more ticks. It also tells me which target to return to when I have every single DoT up and a few spare moments to do something else, and which target I should put Garuda on.

[Snorgrind]

im tanking from launch and after my past experiences i gave up marking in df cuz good dps know what to do and dont need it and bad dps dont read or follow it at all.

[GunksFoy]

Someone may have stated this in the last few pages of the thread, I didn't check, but you realize that Full Thrust on drg does 330 potency instantly, and you can have cycled through this rotation twice by the time your dots expire, meaning that your math is completely flawed due to the fact that the single target rotation hits twice in the time dots can go through once. Therefore, you need to double that potency for your math to be correct, which, as you'll see, Is higher than dots.

[Shinkyo]

snip

+1 on that one.
While Marking should only be a nice to have at endgame, it's still a good tanking practice. though it may not always add value, it's never hurt to do it.

As for the dots, it's not true always that dots yield superior DPS because of combo bonuses. it's really class specific.
Also, we're talking about trash pulls so applying dot on every target would only shortening the pull by a few seconds while increasing the incoming damage and targeting complexity.