Bam, Zoom!
The BRK Non-WoW Thought of the Day: If a restaurant doesn’t have a fax machine, do not call ahead to order lunch-to-go. Quiznos has a fax, Arby’s does not. Game, set, match.
“Dear BRK … I’ve been having issues targeting mobs during a raid. I’ve been running Kara a lot lately and when we pull 4+ mobs I spend most of my time just trying to click on the mob (and not my fellow raid members). By the time I finally get a shot off, the mob is almost dead anyway and then the cycle starts over again with the next one. Are there good strategies / macros / addons that could help?
“I already use a lot of addons and macros, but they always seem to have some kind of flaw that keeps me from trusting them. For example, we were running Kara tonight to break in a new MT. My macros work off of “focus”, so I made the MT my focus. Unfortunately, in the middle of a large numbered mob pull, I hit my “Assist” macro and then my Pet Attack macro. I’m guessing that our new MT was looking ahead at the mob in the next room because my pet pulled the whole next room. I didn’t trust my macro after that and just started to do things manually. Should I ditch the macros all together? Balrok”
We use an assist-macro as well. Do not allow a single incident of miss-targeting on the MT’s part to discourage using it.
There is one good way to lessen the chance that you’ll attack a target you’re not prepared to pull, and that’s by always using raid symbols.
Put a raid symbol over every mob in each pull. If you assist your MT and see he’s targeting a mob that doesn’t have a raid symbol, don’t send your pet.
Now the “attack the main-tank’s target” model works great in 5-man instances, but what about bigger raids. In 10-man and 25-man instances, you’ll have multiple off-tanks to switch among. How do we handle this situation? Well, we have two methods that work well.
The Main Assist is a similar concept to the Main Tank, but in this case the Main Assist is a DPS class. His job is to keep track of the order of attack and the rest of the DPS classes use him as their Focus and attack his target.
You’re running Kara, trying for Attumen. You’ve got a 5-mob pull with which to deal. MT and OT handle one each, hunter traps one, priest shackles one, paladin fears one. You mark the mobs:
Skull = MT
X = OT
Blue Square = Trap
Orange Circle = Shackle
Moon = Fear
The kill order is going to be Skull, Moon, Square, X, Circle. Once the MT’s mob is down, he grabs the feared mob. That guy goes down, the MT grabs the trapped mob, it dies. DPS switches to the OT’s mob while the MT grabs the Shackle. X dies, than Circle.
Can you follow the MT’s target for the proper kill order? Nope, the raid has to switch to the OT’s target and then back to the MT’s. With a Main Assist, the raid follows the MA from target to target, using the MA as their Focus and attacking their Focus’s target.
Being a Main Assist is a challenging job, as a very good sense of situational awareness is required. Rogues are usually a good candidate for the job as they don’t have crowd-control responsibilities after the pull begins.
Another method of organizing Focus Fire is to use CT_RaidAssist. For DPS classes, our favorite functions of this addon are twofold:
1. It allows the raid leader to assign multiple main tanks.
2. It allows us to target the target of these tanks via a keybind.
In our SSC raids, we’ll have five tanks. We assign them in CT_RaidAssist as MT1, MT2, … MT5. In the Keybinding section of our preferences, we have setup our number pad with MT assists.
If we wish to target MT1’s target, we press our number pad “1″ key.
If we wish to target MT2’s target, we press our number pad “2″ key.
…
If we wish to target MT5’s target, we press our number pad “5″ key.
SSC begins, the tanks grab their targets, we press our number pad “1″ key, BAM we’re targeting the first DPS target so we hit our PetAttack macro key. The PetAttack macro casts a Hunter’s Mark, sends Hobbes to attack, and hits the mob with a Scorpid Sting.
That mob dies, we press our number pad “2″ key, KAPOW we’re targeting the second DPS target, we hit our PetAttack macro … etc.
See how fast that is? Two keystrokes results in switching targets and accomplishing all our preliminary tasks, leaving us ready to watch our threat and adapt our shot-rotation accordingly.
How sweet it is.
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17 Responses to “Bam, Zoom!”
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In five-mans, the macro usually isn’t worth the effort–I use unit frames that show the current targets of all party members (Pitbull), so it’s easy to just click on the tank or the assist’s target before I send things in.
Raids, yeah, gets a bit dicier, but unless the 5-mans at the top end of things are significantly different from the normal stuff, you should be fine with just manually changing your targets.
How do you get a Hunter’s Mark and Scorpid Sting in one macro? They both trigger the GCD.. Do elaborate.
PS. Faxes?? Websites and email baby.
How do you get a Hunter’s Mark and Scorpid Sting in one macro?
/cast sequence
ORA-2. Lightweight. Clean. Easy to use. Ace-2.
CT_Raid is SOOOOOOO 2006! lol
That’s two keys.. (press it twice to get full effects)
Also HM has a 2 minute timer, while Scorpid Sting is on a 20s timer
So to re-apply you can’t use the same key anyways. Unless the castsequence has a reset time equal to the duration of Scorpid Sting, and casts Scorpid first.
/castsequence reset=20 Scorpid Sting, Hunter’s Mark
I’m intrigued
(In a way I miss DAoC’s command queueing, where you could already press the next thing you wanted to do and it would queue up. At least.. That’s how I remember DAoC working.. It’s been three years)
Thanks for helping me out BRK! I’ll try and coerce my raid leaders to be more consistent about the raid symbols. That seems to be the most foolproof method.
The primary issue is just trusting someone else’s target. That’s why all the macro and unit frames discussion doesn’t make me feel better (and that’s what’s most important, right???). But, in the future, a capable Main Assist would be ideal for our raids.
Ultimately what I think I want is a unit frames system that gives a list of mobs (not party targets!), sorted by range from closest to farthest. Then I just click on the mob I want and go for it. Good luck getting that data from WOW!
Ooooh, been there, done that! Last night actually, only in this case I selected a player and pressed the “f” key (having been burned by the marco on an earlier occasion) and sent the pet. The little dude shot off on his mission of destruction, sailing past our player and on to aggro the whole upper area before you get to Moroes. Dit…dit..dit..dit…Wipeout! (60’s Surf music reference) /incoming abuse, curses and threats against our firstborn!
What someone has recently explained to me is that focus will look to the table for it’s target. If there is a lot of similar trash mobs in the area, it can pick up one of them before it locks on your intended target. So it isn’t necessarily that the subject of your assist is looking elsewhere, it may be that nearby trash mobs are showing up in the table instead.
BRK, your suggestion regarding marking is awesome however, I’ve rarely been on a raid where such comprehensive marking occurs. /shame on us
@SAR
Is that because the trash mobs can have the same name as your focus’ target?
These are great reasons to not have Dash/Dive on automatic in instances/raids. If it’s not on auto, sure your pet will get there 3 seconds later, but isn’t that worth not wiping? If you do see your pet going the wrong way, a quick ctrl+2 to bring it back, retarget, then send.
The other reason not to have your pet dash is in case it gets feared into other mobs. Fear + dash in the wrong direction = bad.
I would kill for an addon that lets me target mobs based on their marks instead of based on who the tanks are targetting…
Something like proximo for raids… Not entirely the same functionality, but nevertheless quite similar…
Don’t get too dependent on thousands of macros or addons. Even raid symbols can go wrong, especially when mobs attack out of the blue. With a little hindsight and a quick second or two to survey the fighting scene (as a hunter usually from a distance anyway) you will be able to pick the proper target. In bigger raids a Main Assist is helpful, so pick his target.
An easy way to cycle through close-by targets is by using the Tab key. However, do not leave Auto Shot running when doing so. That’s a recipe for disaster.
In the regular Blizzard interface settings you can set it so that switching targets will automatically turn your Auto Shot / Auto Attack off. Very helpful. Also, you can set it so that the target of a target will display under the unit frame. So when you click your Main Assist or MT or OT, you can easily pick their target.
And yes, Ctrl-1 and especially Ctrl-2 if your pet takes off in a wrong direction are your friend. Use them.
@OP This is an excellent question. Been there, done that.
Kara is insanely “busy” when it comes to the trash mobs. When I am new to an encounter or can’t always remember the kill order, I just stick with the MT using the assist macro.
This macro should only contain the focus and assist commands and absolutely nothing else, especially /petattack.
Simply take a moment and review your target…does it have a raid symbol and some sort of tank aggro icon (taunt, sunder, maul, etc)? If so, go for it.
If not, continue to hit your assist macro if you are still unsure of your next target or can’t find it…your MT *will* be hitting a “valid” target in short order.
It is possible that you may not always be on the next kill order, but you’ve not wiped the raid either. Simply wait for the inevitable instructions over TS/Vent, “Everyone should be on .” Move to that target when you are comfortable with it. Rinse and repeat.
Boss encounters aren’t nearly as difficult in terms of targeting. Wiping your raid on trash just sucks though, so just play it safe. At least that is what I do.
Any tank assist mod, macro, keybind or raid frame is still 100% dependedent on the MT or MA targeting the right mob, even if it’s only for a split second while he tries to find the next target himself. I’ve been there done that, as far as using any of the above methods to assist a tank, only to find my pet streaming off to the next pack of mobs. Without doubt, the best way is to have a proper marking system similar to that outlined by BRK.
my petattack macro is just mark/petattack. i had two versions, one with serpent sting and one with scorpid sting, but i decided that was silly and now i cast my stings myself.
other than that, though, this is a really excellent post of the “why i like brk.net” variety. i’m building macros for tomorrow night’s badge runs now.
We have the raid icons down to a science. Kill order is always the same, and CC icons are always the same. Square is trap, Diamond is shackle, etc. I’m working on a macro that will attempt to target the first mob in the sequence and cast hunters mark, if that mob is dead it will target the second mob in sequence and cast hunters mark, and so on down the kill order. Since 99% of pulls use the exact same sequence this should make it a one click target and mark button. I don’t do anything but mark the target with that macro, that way if I target the wrong mob it will not break a CC.
What is making this possible is that you can now type a raid icon into text, therefore use it in a macro. I can get it to target the first one, but am struggling with getting it to target the second if there is no first.
To Balrock:
Yes, it’s because of same or even similar name. Sometimes similar names or titles are enough for a partial recognition in the table.
“ORA-2. Lightweight. Clean. Easy to use. Ace-2.”
Ora2 allows each individual to set up hit own maintanks and assist and is sooper easy to use.
You can easily change it on-the-fly and set as many assists as you want.
I would recomment it to anybody.