Rule #1: Everyone kills the same thing!
The basics of any group activity in the World of Warcraft: work together to achieve a goal. That goal most commonly being to cause the demise of something, I think my "Everyone kills the same thing" macro is the most important one there is. I copy the text here from the original post at Warcrafthuntersunion, so I apologize for the weird formatting. Please hold your questions until after reading the follow up post.
The most important macro is IMHO the macro that helps to achieve this rule. The basics of operations in raids is that a “Main Assist” is the target selector and everyone else attacks the MA’s target. In 5-mans the MA is usually the tank. In raids it often a rogue (due to combo point needs) but really can be anyone who knows enough about kill orders to be able to prioritise what needs to die next. In our raids a hunter often fills this role.
Regardless – if you’re not the MA you need a way of picking up thier target quickly – assisting is built into the game and if I always had the same person to assist then I could just write the simple macro ‘/assist Frostheim’
But, we can do better.
Assist Macro:
/focus [modifier:alt] target
/stopmacro [modifier:alt]
/tar [target=focus,harm] focus
/assist [target=focus,help] focus; [target=pet, exists] playerpet
So, this is the macro I have bound to the ‘F’ key, overwriting the built in assist behaviour. It essentially operates in 2 ways “Mode 1” is when I press ‘Alt-F’, “Mode 2” when I just hit ‘F’.
The underlying idea is that I want a macro to set my ‘focus’ or to assist my focus, my pet, or a specific focused enemy mob.
The operation is that in raids I set my focus to be the MA, by targeting the MA and hitting ‘Alt-F’ then from there on I hit ‘F’ to assist them. Thus once I have my focus set to the MA — all I have to do is hit “F” and I’ll automatically be targeting the same target as the MA!
Lines 1 & 2 are the ones that look after the setting focus bit. Basically the first line sets the current target as my focus, but the conditional in [ ] says only do it is a modifier key is pressed, and specifically the ‘Alt’ modifier key. Then second line says to stop doing anything else if we just set the focus — it’s the “early exit” clause.
Line 3 deals with the idea that I sometimes need to focus on an enemy and target them, rather than assist someone. The ‘/tar focus’ says to target the focus mob, but this time the conditional (the bit in the []) is a little more complicated. Basically the conditional ‘[target=focus, harm]’ asks the question “Is my current focus an enemy (harmful unit)?” The ‘target=focus’ tells the line what is the subject of the question & the ‘harm’ specifies what question is being asked.
Line 4 is really two commands, or the same command, ‘/assist’, with 2 possible endings. Ending #1, ‘[target=focus,help] focus’, asks the question “Is my current focus unit a friend?” in which case we assist that unit. This is essentially the opposite question from the previous line. Ending #2, ‘[target=pet,exist] playerpet’, asks the questions “Does my pet exist?” in which case assist my pet.
What is important to realize is that the three questions asked on the last two lines are asked in order, and when one of them answers “yes” the associated action will be taken and the macro will stop automatically, so the others will not.
Basically then Priority 1 is to target a focused enemy, next is to assist a focused friend, only if the focus hasn’t been set will you attempt to assist your pet (useful when soloing)
Some follow up and clarification:
The first question or comment I get is always something like "but it's hard when you're always tab targetting to pick stuff up and stuff". While it's true that your tank, whether or not it's Parkuss, may do some target switching to interrupt, deathgrip, taunt etc they will be concentrating their efforts in the dungeon, on the thing they want to die first. So, on a pull, or after one target dies, go ahead and burn on whatever target you pick up next for a couple seconds to let your tank collect everyone, and then use your assist macro to make sure you're burning down the right priority target. What you don't want to be doing is playing by yourself. It's a group activity with shared goals. If your tank (or main assist in a raid) has chosen a target to prioritize, they've done so for a reason. Respect that decision and work with your group. If there's a caster mob standing away from the group, you may assume your tank knows it is there and has taken, or will take, appropriate action.
Actually, let me pause and address that particular situation in a little more detail, since it is so common. Here's a for instance: Parkuss pulls the next group of mobs but there are two casters and they are spread on opposite sides of the hall. There is also a third mob, maybe an archer, who won't move easily, so Parkuss runs in and yanks one caster to the immobile mob, drops D&D on the group (which has collapsed onto his head) then he does this silly little sidestep, boils blood, then settles down in place to kill the first target of priority. Maybe it's the caster, maybe the archer, maybe it's the one that said something about his mom. Since he has left the second caster standing alone, outside the group, we can be sure it's not that one.
Now, Helpful Melee Dps runs over and figures that their tank either hasn't seen this threat, that he is incapable of dealing with it, or just plain doesn't know what to do about. Based on his assumption he runs over to it and starts smacking it in the mouth. Now, this guy isn't a tank, so he starts taking a lot of unnecessary, possibly life threatening damage. He also isn't doing his job, which is to kill the actual priority target. Not good, right?
Unfortunately, that is not all that's going on here. Remember that silly little sidestep on the pull? That allowed Parkuss to DoT up that outlying mob so that he would have threat until it was time to go deal with it directly. He does that because healing generates threat, and if Parkuss doesn't piss that caster off, it's going to kill the healer while we play with its friends. This would be bad. It only take a few stabs to the face for Helpful Melee Dps to out-threat Parkuss's DoTs, and now they are tanking. Now the healer is pouring a LOT of heals into that un-tank, and generating a LOT more threat on that mob, thereby also out-threating Parkuss. Now the mob kills Helpful Melee Dps because it's a badass denizen of darkness, and the helpful dude is not a tank, or the rest of the group needed heals, there are only so many global cooldowns, and the healer had to choose who to heal. (Man, do healers hate having to make this choice!)
Now Helpful Melee Dps is dead, and who has threat? Your healer.
Helpful Melee Dps wasn't helping. He may, in fact, cause a wipe by getting a healer killed, or even by just not being there to provide his dps.
If the tank needs help, CC, off-tanking, whatever, he will ask for it. There are reasons to kill mobs in a certain order, and no matter the priority, if everyone is on the same enemy it dies faster. When it dies, it stop doing damage, or healing its friends, or interrupting your healer, or turning your dps into floppy fish, or... well, anything!
I think that's enough for now. Moral of the story is assist for target. Don't pick your own unless that's your job.
More to follow!
As always,
-Parkuss
So much this...
I was running a mythic+ the other day and the hunter is just dpsing down random mobs and pulling random things, then screams at the healer because he keeps dying. This is WoW 101.
Myself when I'm tanking will "usually" mark a target if I feel like it needs focused down.
I do feel like the only exception to this is in Mythic+ where AOE and cleaves are important. However some discipline is still needed.
myself as a pally tank do tab target frequently just because of the way judgment works. This is why it's essential to have a knowledge of the mobs you are fighting. One thing I've noticed this expansion the trash is more deadly than a lot of the bosses.
One additional thing to add to this would be exercising a bit of restraint on LOS pulls. When a tank is attempting to LOS (line of sight) pull a group of mobs around a corner please, for the love of all that is good in the world, do not start attacking said mobs before they reach aforementioned tanks position. The whole point of a LOS pull is that there is typically a ranged caster type in the group that will not run toward the tank on the pull but stand in place and cast. LOS allows the tank to pull them to him and away from other groups, etc. If, and this is especially true of ranged dps, you attack the target while it is running toward the tank, you will now have threat and the mob will stop and begin casting on you rather than running to the tank in his predetermined safe spot, thus defeating the entire purpose of the LOS pull the tank was trying to perform.
That is all.
As a ranged dps who is sometimes overly enthusiastic I appreciate this post. I have to remind myself that the numbers on my meter don't matter if I accidentally pull mobs that are not expected by our fearless leaders. I'll sacrifice those high dps numbers rather than throw those guys under the bus of that next mob just over there... Promise.
As a ranged dps who is sometimes overly enthusiastic I appreciate this post. I have to remind myself that the numbers on my meter don't matter if I accidentally pull mobs that are not expected by our fearless leaders. I'll sacrifice those high dps numbers rather than throw those guys under the bus of that next mob just over there... Promise.
Are you SURE you're a hunter?...