Target Marking Tips For Tanks

[Brightsayge]

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.

[shoultzilla]

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.

[NateCat]

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?

[Isseth_Shadowheart]

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

[Isseth_Shadowheart]

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.

[James1213]

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.

[Puppell]

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?

[LilSmalls]

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.

[Cubester]

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.

[Maelwys]

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.