People who ask for marks in DF

[Rydiah]

When I play DPS, its helpful. If they don't mark, that's fine too...I always assist the tank, of course the other DPS just hits whatever they want lol. When I'm healing, I hope they mark because it seems most DPS don't know how to assist and sometimes, mobs go everywhere.

I'm going to pick my gladiator back up today and was looking for the best way to mark. I see a lot of tanks stop for a long time because they can't mark very fast, do you guys just put the marks on your bars? Do you use macros? Would MO macros be faster? What keybinds work best for you? Advice!

[Ehayte]

Do you use macros? Would MO macros be faster? What keybinds work best for you? Advice!

I can't speak for PC players, but on PS3 the time taken to mark is a burden sometimes, so I made a super simple macro of:

/marking off <t>
/marking "Cross" <t>

That just strips the current mark off the mob, and marks it with a cross. I tell my dps: Just follow the X! I just keep the target I want DPS on marked, and switch it to the next mob until there is only one left. I find marking 1, 2, 3 is fine, but if I want to change the strategy mid-fight I can't, or have to go through extra xhotbars to accomplish what I want.

[Rydiah]

I can't speak for PC players, but on PS3 the time taken to mark is a burden sometimes, so I made a super simple macro of:

/marking off <t>
/marking "Cross" <t>

That just strips the current mark off the mob, and marks it with a cross. I tell my dps: Just follow the X! I just keep the target I want DPS on marked, and switch it to the next mob until there is only one left. I find marking 1, 2, 3 is fine, but if I want to change the strategy mid-fight I can't, or have to go through extra xhotbars to accomplish what I want.

I play on PC, but I totally believe you about marking on the PS3. I have played on the PS3 and I think its difficult, probably because I'm just not used to it!

[Prototype79L]

I can't speak for PC players, but on PS3 the time taken to mark is a burden sometimes, so I made a super simple macro of:

/marking off <t>
/marking "Cross" <t>

That just strips the current mark off the mob, and marks it with a cross. I tell my dps: Just follow the X! I just keep the target I want DPS on marked, and switch it to the next mob until there is only one left. I find marking 1, 2, 3 is fine, but if I want to change the strategy mid-fight I can't, or have to go through extra xhotbars to accomplish what I want.

You can put mark signs onto your hotbar, so marking is just as simple like using any other skill. There is no need to macro, marking one enemy is enough, so one sign is enough on your hotbar.

[AridElf]

I'm going to pick my gladiator back up today and was looking for the best way to mark. I see a lot of tanks stop for a long time because they can't mark very fast, do you guys just put the marks on your bars? Do you use macros? Would MO macros be faster? What keybinds work best for you? Advice!

I have mark for attack 1, 2 and 3 on my bars off to the side where I can't hit them by accident. Then it's a simple case of tab (mark 1) tab (mark 2) tab (mark 3), some people use the little window but I had three extra slots open so I figured eh, why not?

[Lumines]

When I play DPS, its helpful. If they don't mark, that's fine too...I always assist the tank, of course the other DPS just hits whatever they want lol. When I'm healing, I hope they mark because it seems most DPS don't know how to assist and sometimes, mobs go everywhere.

I'm going to pick my gladiator back up today and was looking for the best way to mark. I see a lot of tanks stop for a long time because they can't mark very fast, do you guys just put the marks on your bars? Do you use macros? Would MO macros be faster? What keybinds work best for you? Advice!

Building on the previous poster. What I think is a super easy way to do it is to just bind it all onto an action bar that you don't use. I use all the numpad keys for my marks, 123456789.+- and so forth. After you do all that, you can then hide the action bar so UI isn't cluttered. Viola, easy marking!

[Makeda]

I'm going to pick my gladiator back up today and was looking for the best way to mark. I see a lot of tanks stop for a long time because they can't mark very fast, do you guys just put the marks on your bars? Do you use macros? Would MO macros be faster? What keybinds work best for you? Advice!

I use a Nostromo Pad, so I have my 1-9 keys set up in a grid and 3 keys to the left of them for shift, control and alt.

numbers is key actions for building enmity and triggering survivability / self-healing
shift numbers is alternate priority actions for soloing or when not worried about enmity
Control - numbers is marking.
I have yet to need the 'alt' binds.

I can mark a stack of 5 mobs before half the DPS are even in range...

I have a habit of approaching corners from an edge and camming around them. I learned this from 2007 tanking in WoW back when we had no AOE moves at all - we had to LoS pull things and do a lot of tabbing. A corner glance with quick marking set up my pull, and trained the DPS to stay behind me. DPS that go ahead - might pull something and get one-shot before I can get it off them.

Works here too... DPS rarely run in front of a tank unless well... they're bad DPS... the good ones stay behind me, and if I limit the view like this, I can mark with my keybinds before they can even see the targets. They come into view of a nicely arranged pull, and there's no slow down.

Sure... I'm not max level here yet like some people farming the end stuff (42 as of this post). But I've been around the block in several MMOs, and tanking doesn't change much. I even do this stuff in GW2, where's I've managed to prove that all 8 classes there can be built as near tanks, and you can mark 1 target. But what worked in 2007 in WoW, works today in FFXIV. Even better in fact than it does in modern WoW.

OP's "AOE it all" mindset - that's a 2013 WoW tank speaking... those kinds of tanks really don't have play skill. They rely on a game engine that is way too forgiving and built for 1 to 3 button rotations... Maybe that works at endgame here too... but not from what I keep reading from other folks.