I dont use the Assist feature - whats it all about?
I've done out of my way to make it easier. Suggested macros, even posted them on forums. . . to no avail.
Anyone else gotten over this hump? Is there an add on out there that will tell me who's NOT assisting when in combat? So far I only have Xperl which tells me who IS assisting.
I dont use the Assist feature - whats it all about?
It's about leetness.
If Xpearl is telling you who is assisting surely will it then just by seeing who you have in the group minus the people it shows who are assisting leaves you with the people who are not assisting?
Or am i not understanding what your saying?
Well if it is a 5 man, I use the feature in Xperl that lets me see everyone's targets next to their player portrait. Since I always mark the first and sometimes second kills, I can glance up and see who is not on the skull (or the X). For raids, I haven't found a good system yet other than targetting them to see, but that is a bit tedious.
Originally Posted by Leytur
If all the dps is assisting somebody you dont have to mark, makes tanking alot easier, and stuff dies faster. Its not about leetness its about making the run go smoother and faster.
Iv done a few pugs lately and told them to assist a dps for the kill order. Its somewhat works i occasionally get some stuck up dps who thinks hes to leet to follow everybody else. I also ran into a hunter who made it his personal job to try and pull aggro, he never used MD even if asked and he always waited a few seconds to find out which mob i was paying the least attention to or trying to los and attacked that one.
I dont even know what the addon that it comes with is but this little box shows up in the corner of my screen and it tells me who is targeting me and who attacking my target. I really like it.
I let them die. Seriously.
My main is a shadow priest, and the best way I learned to calm down (before 3.0.2 I liked to multi dot a lot) was by my tanks not taunting off me when I did pull aggro. After you go "Well, I probably did deserve that" on vent a few times, you start to get the point.
If they don't get the point; they don't belong in the raid/group. Try to explain it, but don't take people screwing up too often. I mean, come on, we were given these giant Skull marks (awesome addition to the game, btw, if you ever raided in other games without marks), surely it isn't too hard to make sure you are hitting the right one.
Combat log also shows the marks next to the damage messages, so you can scroll around in there and see who the dps was attacking.
hrm one of my mods puts a list of who everyone is targeting, it's probably xpearl but i'm not 100% sure, i'll check on it tonight
"Stop trying to hit me and hit me!"
~ Morpheus
While we've only tried it on 5-man instances, we use "Target of Target". We start of with marking and go through the kill list, but if something doesn't get marked (bad pull or ambush or whatever) the DPS uses ToT on me.
Everyone in the group has this new WOW feature turned on in Interface (under combat tab) . When the DPS don't know who to target, they ask. I then target the main target (if I'm not already on it) and ToT shows the DPS exactly who needs to get burned down.
This seems to be working pretty good for us. Is there a reason this wouldn't work at 80 or endgame content? (Yes, marking is best, but for those unexpected moments...)
Don't listen to what I say, watch what I do. Don't watch what I do until I'm done - TGAPGeorge
/assist is how groups ran instances before raid icons (yes, there was such a time). You /assist on the tank to target his/her target, and kill it. That was the kill order.
Kazeyonoma: Giving people too much time to think makes them do stupid things too.
I tend to try to spread threat between all the mobs in a pull so that AoE can be used indiscriminately. Single target DPSers using /assist on me would find that I'm rarely on the same target for long. I try to encourage them to spread their damage as well (and stun as many of the different mobs as they can as there are no diminishing returns if different targets are being stunned). Rogues don't like this target switching very well as it goes against their combo point system, so when I run with them I try to spike threat on a single target for them before moving on to spreading the threat around. With tricks of the trade this is much less of an issue than before.
Threat meters are 100% accurate now. There is no excuse for pulling single target agro. If a DPSer is creeping up on threat on a particular target, then it is their responsibility to either use a threat dump, or switch targets. As tanks, our only real challenge now is to ensure that AoE threat can be held appropriately because that is where DPSers may lose track of how close they are to grabing agro away from a tank. Similarly, AoE threat is a place that is hardest for a tank to keep track of. Thunder clap, Swipe, Consecrate, and Death and Decay are not always enough to hold agro on their own if they are up against more than just healing agro (like a mage spamming arcane explosion in the 110% melee pulling range).
If I mark targets it is because they have some particular ability that warants their death fast (i.e. heals, mortal strike effects, aoe, stuns, etc.). In those cases I certainly don't want DPS using /assist to decide who dies next. Kill the skull.
Manatank we rarely ever had somebody assist the tank. Your assist target is normally an intelligent dps who knows what has to die first and is always on the proper targets.
Which I'm sure was great for the time, but today would suffer from the same draw backs I suggested. That said, it is still a viable option for a strict kill order.
It sounds to me like you're talking about the difference between marking and assisting.
You mark the guys you want killed first, it's the MA's job to target those mobs in that order. When things go haywire because of a tank death or misspull, that's when you speak up and call the shots.
Many classes benefit better from single target than AoE, not just rogues. But, whether or not you choose to aoe everything down or single target things down I think is a bit beyond the scope of this dicussion.
In my prior guild, we had the hunters mark, pull, and MA. It has its pluses, but that pretty much means that aside from our "main puller", the other hunters had little clue. Some learned eventually, but when things got haywire it was difficult for people to listen to the tank call the shots, because they're too used to the hunters doing it.
With that said, I think one of the best things that came out of it was that our hunters had a macro to mark it with skull when they put up hunters mark. The DPS follows the skull. It worked pretty well, though our hunters (for GCD reasons) would switch early, and all the DPS would stop at with the mob at like 10% health.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. -Seneca
Everyone marvels at a square egg, but only the chicken understands the PAIN.
True. Any spec that gets a significant DPS boost from debuffing a target (particularly with stacking debuffs) suffer a DPS loss if they need to switch targets, but the combo point system (rogue/cat druid) is particularly vulnerable to this.
Im not sure what drawbacks your talking about. Most of the time its better to single target stuff and dps need to learn fast how to run instances without aoeing everything at once.
Most of the time? Maybe it's my history as a paladin tank, but I've rarely run into pulls that are quicker with single target dps/CC than AoE everything pulls. Obviously in multi-tank situations and hard hitting 25-man raid trash this is not optimal, but for 5-mans it certainly seems to be. I'd say the optimal solution to every pull is AoE, and the only time to single target/cc is if it is abosolutely necessary (i.e. you'd die from an excess of incoming damage without the cc). I feel that way even when I tank on my warrior with the new thunderclap.
When I was speaking of drawbacks, I'm referring to the draw back of using /assist to pick a single target to dps. In a single target situation it is completely adequte. In an AoE situation it fails to take into account that other dpsers will be using AoE, so the tank will be spreading his/her threat around rather than on one target so an intelligent single target DPSer will spike on one target until they hit a threat level that is in danger of pulling agro, and then either agro dump or single target dps on a different target in the pull. If tanks in this situation only cater to the single target dpsers by focusing their threat on a single target, and assume that thunderclap, swipe, consecrate, or death and decay will hold agro against the AoE abilities of other dpsers then the speed and efficiency of AoE pulling is destroyed.
Marking is still more reliable, imo. If we have a hunter, he can be main assist but I usually go without one. I tell people not to assist off me because I frequently change targets.
As a warrior, I still prefer the one target system, but I tend to do this when AOEing:
Mark a kill first target. Charge in, start with my AoE stuff, then revenge/shield slam skull. After that, I start tabbing around and smashing the other guys in the face.
I also put vigilance on the person who is doing the most AoE. Usually a mage, but sometimes a spriest.
I don't see how you can be "lazy" and not mark a first kill mob. I usually do it while I'm chain pulling. It doesn't take 5 seconds to right click the portrait, select skull mark.
When I tank as a paladin or a warrior I also prefer the one target system in the sense that it is easier for me, but I also think it is slower so I always push for AoE.
I always do. This thread is about using a main assist instead of marking (i.e. kill order determined on the fly by the main assist vs ahead of the pull with raid marks). All of my points have been about how that takes the responsibility of personal threat management away from individual DPSers, and in AoE situations I contend that is a bad thing. When kill order is the most important concern, then marking or main assist are both valid ways to accomplish this. When a bunch of stuff just needs to die in no particular order, then single target DPSers should be personally responsible for monitoring their threat and hitting things that wont pull agro (i.e. no kill order).
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