Why mark targets?

[Thebob89]

Ok, I'm a healer main and I personally prefer targets to be marked. I've been with groups who have ran dungeons without marking and all and all things turned out fine butttt in my experience most dr groups are far to unorganized to just run threw, the damage ends up split between the mobs and the pull usualy ends up lasting longer than it would have taken to just mark the kill order. The tanks often lose their holds an I have to end up spamming massive cures all over the place. In a small mob it's not a problem, but it ends up taxing my mana pool and increases the risk of me pulling aggro off the tank. Not saying its wrong not to mark but it help when the buggers are to dead to deal damage...

[scootie12]

I haven't had time to read every reply, but to answer the OP, I mark targets when tanking in order to keep the attacks more organized.

I find, in general, parties like it when I mark because it allows us to down mobs faster. We'll all attack mark #1 while the BLM, for example, can cast sleep on the others and watch their timers if needed. Also, sometimes certain enemies take priority over others, so another good reason to mark.

I also always tell new players that I'll mark for them to make it easier.

Idk, since I just finished my PLD to 50, I feel I've gotten very nice comments from parties when I help with marking. Also, since I leveled DRG, BLM and WHM first, I think knowing those roles have me a very different look at tanking.

The one thing I don't do though is take forever to mark lol. I can mark and run at the same time :P

[Bridgeburner]

Honestly it's best not to read the replies, because the thread quickly devolved from "why should you mark", which was just a catchy title, to "all dps should dot absolutely everything all the time", which relies on some skewed math, the presumption that all targets dotted are going to survive for the entire duration of a dot, and other givens that don't reflect common dungeon conditions.

This thread is about ready to die. Marking is a good thing. Complaints about how DPS behave should go to the DPS forum, imo. =)

[Viridiana]

Honestly it's best not to read the replies, because the thread quickly devolved from "why should you mark", which was just a catchy title, to "all dps should dot absolutely everything all the time", which relies on some skewed math, the presumption that all targets dotted are going to survive for the entire duration of a dot, and other givens that don't reflect common dungeon conditions.

While I agree that the op's argument has almost nothing to do with his title, very few dots require their full duration in order to be efficient. Just throwing that out there.

[Langureion]

Wel, ppl will learn when their characters hit the ground, it's that simple.

[CyanDvai]

Just to toss out another comment about marking.
As a tank I don't always mark target. If I don't mark a target then I don't care which ones you focus on, I'll hold hate on all of them and if I loose hate on one then that is my fault.
If I specifically want a certain mob to go down first then I'll toss a 1 on it before I pull.

Only other time I mark targets is if a party member specifically requests me to do so. I had a guy ask me to mark in AV when we reached the first boss, so after the boss was dead I marked each pull. I would mark 1 first, pull and then mark 2 and 3.

Marking is not hard, but it's tedious especially when you've ran the same dungeon a dozen times and for the most party people should know the kill order. It's only really beneficial when there's a new person in the dungeon or someone who doesn't know all the pulls yet.

[YuiSasaki]

Not every class excels at AE-damage (e.g. MNK).

Want a shorter version?

Just mark!...


Edit: Of course it's better to apply dots, yet people tend to be lazy and sometimes it's just wasted (e.g. mobs with very little HP).

[Viridiana]

Not every class excels at AE-damage (e.g. MNK).

Want a shorter version?

Just mark!...


Edit: Of course it's better to apply dots, yet people tend to be lazy and sometimes it's just wasted (e.g. mobs with very little HP).

Even MNK can easily spread Demolish. And most mobs that have such little hp that they'll die before 6-9 seconds (time it takes for Demolish to surpass Snap Punch) come in groups large enough that you AOE them down, anyway.

[SummonerSenah]

I actually really dislike macros like this. All it takes is to accidentally double-tap and it's gone, or if you lose aggro and provoke+shield lob a secondary target, suddenly that one's #1, etc.

I had this issue when I ran a dungeon as a tank for the first time. I solved it by keeping two versions of Tomahawk/Shield Lob on my hot bar. One version is the regular one that's not attached to a macro, and one is the one attached to the macro. So when I'm numbering I toss out the one attached to the macro. If I have to grab aggro again I just toss out the regular Tomahawk/Shield Lob and the mobs stay numbered how I had them set up originally.

Macroing mark with tomahawk/shield lob is a bad idea. Say you want to mark something else mid fight, you may have just wasted 120 tp. Might need that tp in long fights or to start the next set of adds quicker.

Typically you only use the macro with mark 1. If you're fighting something and you decide to mark something else, you're probably not going to use mark 1, so you just assign it a different number and therefore aren't using Shield Lob/Tomahawk anyway. If you want to change that target to mark 1, you still don't have to use your marking macro; you just manually assign it to one. On PC you can right click on enemies to mark, so it's not as time consuming as everyone makes it out to be.

[BazFamrit]

snip.

I play on ps3 and hot bar space costs a lot. I have a 2 hot bar setup right now with everything setup ergonomically to increase my reaction time and limit errors. Adding in even a single mark macro to it would throw off the whole thing. My tomahawk is macrod with provoke. I spam buttons to compensate for latency and missed commands. Marks would be flashing on and off constantly and i would most likely fire off voke or tomahawk when i dont want to. Every button has a purpose for me and I need maximum utility out of every single slot. Marking is just not that big of a priority to merit a spot.

Marking is a band aid for poor hate control or poor target choices by DPS. Since I rarely have trouble keeping hate I usually only mark for bad DPS or I explain to them target priorities if I see them making mistakes. My point is that marking isn't quite as useful as everyone here is stating. Its good to know in the event you need it but most of the time not necessary.