I like Nikol's writeup of
her experiences marking targets in instances. There really is an art to laying down those icons in a group, and it requires quite a bit of knowledge to do right. You need to keep group makeup in mind,
know the abilities of all the classes involved, pay attention to what individual members want to do and even how they're specced, and have a basic knowledge of the instance and how it works. There's so much that goes into it that it's basically an art in itself -- do you sheep the caster and take out the minions, or focus on the big bad first and then move on to trash? Do you have the group to interrupt and pull a caster to a trap, or do you need to get the mobs out of the way before the patrol comes through?
It's complicated and fascinating stuff, and this kind of group coordination is why some players
choose to play PvE rather than PvP -- because while yes, the mobs are predictable (and players aren't; as much, anyway), the fun is in the planning. And when you get a good group to go with a good planner, then things really get interesting. There is
an art to laying down marks, but once you study what a good marker does, and get the hang of it, you're that much more helpful to any groups you're in.
Tags: caster, groups, healer, instances, marking, raid-icons, tank
Filed under: Tips, How-tos, Odds and ends, Instances, Raiding
Feb 27th 2008 at 7:05PM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
AlmtyBob Feb 27th 2008 7:17PM
Kill order Skull-X-Star, Sheep Moon, Trap Square, Sap Triangle, Warlocky Stuff on Diamond. I bind them to my numpad keys so I can remark on the fly (important for removing CC marks on accidentally DoT'd targets). The key, at least in Heroics/Raids, is to know the abilities of your targets and enforce the kill order. The easy way to enforce it is the you-pull-it-you-tank-it-policy after one free pass.
andyjay220 Feb 27th 2008 7:23PM
I think this is one of the most important aspects that a group leader (often the tank in 5 mans) does. However, I have found that with less experienced players or players that for some reason can't/won't follow the kill order it can make me want to never mark.
In addition to the you tank it policy, I also add that if you disobey the marks and blame the tank or healer, or in fact do anything less than profusely apologize and never do it again, I'm likely to dislike you.
This, like so many things in WoW, will be elementary to most ppl who read this but completely not read by the ppl who NEED to read it.
Anduryl Feb 27th 2008 7:29PM
As a Paladin, when I tank I often quote this most awesome forum signature"
"So, Tankadin, what's the kill order?"
"OK, this room, the next room, the hallway, then boss. Heads up." *Throws Shield*
Zhalseran Feb 27th 2008 8:00PM
One of my favorite quotes. ever.
turkeyspit Feb 28th 2008 9:51AM
Epic Win lolz!
And for heavens sake people, if you are going to take the time and put forth the effort to roll a Tank, then learn how to mark!
If you are unfamiliar with a particular instance, that's fine. But everytime I see a Tank remark "could someone else mark, i'm no good at it", a Boomkin dies! Please Tanks, think of the Furbie Druids!!!
clerkenwell Feb 27th 2008 7:27PM
Especially in heroics, success or a succession of wipes can hinge on merely having someone mark who knows what they're doing. It's truly amazing how large of a difference there is between a mediocre group and a mediocre group that's well organized.
Of course it's much easier (and usually faster) to just have an uber pally tank who can hold five+ mobs at once. CC? We don't need no stinkin CC.
bennet Feb 27th 2008 7:41PM
The WoWAce addon MarkMyWords is handy for people who don't want to wait for someone to mark targets - make them do it themselves! The party leader assigns icons to members according to the usual protocol (skull for the tank, moon for the mage, blue square for the hunter, etc), members select their kill or CC target and whisper .mark to the party lead, the mark shows up over the selected target.
Use of this mod, of course, presupposes that everyone in the party knows their job and what their optimal killing/CC target is...
Ravenous Feb 27th 2008 7:44PM
I actually don't set up an initial kill order in heroics.
I just mark the mobs that I'd like to get CC'd, and then I just slap a skull on the mob that needs to die 1st, and just keep replacing that skull onto the next mob. this allows for a much faster marking at the start, and a lot more dynamic running through instances.
some people argue with me, but I really feel like a 'just focus on skull' type of approach, leaves much more room to resolve unexpected things. (for instance, when another mob turns out to be a lot more dangerous, or healing the others)
hoviboy Feb 27th 2008 7:47PM
Blue square = trap. I love this game
Dave Feb 27th 2008 7:50PM
The most important thing, is to know the abilities of your TANK above all.
It doesn't matter what you mark, if your tank either can't handle certain types of mobs, or a large amount of mobs or whatever. Your kill order should almost always be determined by your group makeup. Maybe killing the casters is best if you have a group full of ranged DPS, maybe killing the strong non-caster is best if you're all melee. (ie: mana burn will destroy your mage, but not so much on your rogue, things like that). It goes hand-in-hand with the mob abilities, but a lot of people don't follow through and apply the ideas to the DPS as well. You want to use CC to mitigate the damage done, not just set up a kill order. In healing a 5-man, I know I personally hate it when all the DPS is taking damage. I can't just let the rogue that steals aggro die, but at the same time I'm focused on the tank... so if there's some mob with a heavy cleaving-type attack, I'd rather it be CC'ed rather than force me to heal all sorts of side-damage if it could wait until the end of the fight when it won't have as much of a chance to do it.
Most of the time though, regardless of what's tanking (warrior, druid or paladin, it's always nice to have focused fire and burn down mobs in short order) I want to burn things in order of most squishy to least squishy. Caster mobs tend to have low HP and die quick. Melee mobs tend to have a lot of HP and while they deal more damage... they if it takes you 30s to kill a single melee mob, but 10s to kill a caster mob and you have a group of 3 casters and 2 melee, you'll only have 2 mobs left after 30s if you kill the casters first, but if you take out the heavy melee guy first you're still left with 4 mobs after the same amout of time and that usually amounts to a lot more damage that everyone has to deal with.
I think it's a pretty basic concept, but for whatever reason the whole kill order/focus fire thing tends to just go right over the heads of most people. I don't know why. Smart marking and repeated pointing out of the marks and kill order can go a long way towards a fast and high quality run.
Shumina Feb 27th 2008 8:05PM
Anyone else call the orange circle a "condom" mark?
Bayard Randel Feb 27th 2008 8:21PM
More often than not it's the "nipple".
Enli Feb 27th 2008 8:38PM
I just started raiding Karazhan. My group calls it "Cookie".
Works for me :-)
matt Feb 28th 2008 2:17AM
truth of the answer:
good groups don't need it for non-raid scenarios. In raid scenarios, its barely needed if people know what to do...there were methods before that.
Milktub Feb 28th 2008 11:31AM
By Good Groups, I assume you mean Good Groups who have run the instance in question together at least once.
I can only imagine the chaos if you took five strangers in. Everyone's ready, right? So the rogue runs over and saps one mob right as the hunter shoots the same for a trap. In the meantime, the tank decides to go after the same mob that the mage chooses to sheep. Since that's not working, the tank changes targets and the hunter pops a DoT on it ... right as the mage decides to sheep that one. The rogue thinks they're changing back to the other mob, so he stabs it, injecting it full of poison. About now, the freeze trap is breaking, so the mage decides to sheep that one, right as the hunter pops off an Arcane shot to re-trap ...
Yeah, fun. I can imagine it'd work just fine if you'd run with the same group. That way everyone knows what everyone else's expectations for each pull is and you can seemlessly go from pull to pull.
Neil Feb 27th 2008 8:32PM
My main is a pally tank. Usually just mark skull for the single-target dps and let the rest die from aoe. Sometimes I don't even bother with that.
CC? Who needs CC?
BigFire Feb 27th 2008 10:11PM
I think this picture explains how Paladin tank views the world:
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w170/JaeganX/TankadinMotivator.jpg
wyrd Feb 27th 2008 10:42PM
100% pure win
andyjay220 Feb 28th 2008 10:02AM
Agreed, that is fantastic. I love my pally tank!
Recent Quote from me: "What is everyone worried about, it's only 10 mobs, and two of them aren't even elites!"
Manatank Feb 28th 2008 1:30PM
Seriously, as a paladin tank, my biggest problem with raid marks is that sometimes there aren't enough to mark the entire kill order (obviously none of the marks are for CC). I usually end up charting out the kill order until I run out of marks, and then start throwing up Skull on the next unmarked target as soon as we run out of things to kill.
I'd like to see a change made that would remove the ambiguity in raid marks. Maybe a big set of "1" through "9" for kill order, and then some specific marks for sorts of CC. That way you don't have the arguments about, "well in my groups circle is for trap because our hunter likes nipples."