From a tank to a dps

[Deleted]

There are more DPS will attack a skull mob than there are DPS who will attack the tank's target when nothing is marked.

So... go figure.

[kriimsilm]

Ive just reached heroics on my DK tank. As a first heroic i thought to take it a bit slower and mark atleast 2-3 mobs. Give the DPS kill order and so on. The funny ...actually annoying thing was that noone held to the kill order.... NOONE! the order was skull-cross-square and skull most of the times died last. sometimes the cross died last. depending, you know. which DPS could nuke his private mob down faster. I managed to keep it together, but only just. Not a QQ, but a fact.

One hand there are DPS that say "mark and i will follow your lead" and on the other hand are DPS who just dont give a rats arse. simple as that.
and the last ones are a majority.

[cleotaurus]

The first thing I ever do on a pack of elite mobs is blow up wild mushrooms and start launching starfall, then I follow by tab sunfiring everything, and when the mobs come chasing me I typhoon them back into fungal growth, and lay down more mushrooms.

A good tank can tank through all of this. Evidence of this is roughly half the time tanks can deal with it no problem, and the other half fail. It doesn't matter though because by the time of the second set of mushrooms, most of the stuff is already dead.

Tanks who think its their job to only put threat on one target, be it skull or whatever, and just casually thunderclap everything else - fuckem. Most of the time healers appreciate it and would rather collect their VP in 20 minutes rather than the hour pace that many tanks would rather set.

[Bombkirby]

Attacking random targets? Are you absolutely certain you're telling the whole story? I know theres some dumb DPS out there but that just sounds outlandish.

[Mulled]

I just mark, but for stuff like lost city I just go nuts aha but if a mage wants to be a tool about it he can have fun running back.

[Deleted]

This thread reminds me of a warrior yelling at me for dps'ing the "wrong" mob. We were in halls of origination and his idea was to aoe tank everything. On top of that he did put up skull and X marks, just not on the aoe'ing mob and rune placing one. I wanted us to survive (2 melee dps) so I went for the aoe'ing one interrupting and burning it down asap. Of course it was hitting me so after that group was down he started calling me a bad (yes, he said "you're a bad")
I just answered with "I'm a dps that likes to live so I ignore tanks that have no idea what they're doing." and he left, everything after that went insanely easy with a much smarter tank.

This happened a little while ago, can't remember exact group setup I just remember the other melee dps being an undergeared rogue.


Besides that :
Anyone can put markers on targets, no macro's required, no focus required, very little time required and everyone should be able to see them.
Attacking whatever the tank targets requires help from either a macro, addon while putting focus on tank when there are no markers.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out which works best in pugs.
So from a dps to any tank that doesn't use the markers and has problems, stop being a lazy dumbass.

I found out that I really need the proper tools to make sure I'm attacking the tank's target because my threat generation is through the roof. So much fun being enhancement shaman with only two tools to reduce threat, one of them is needed to interrupt and the other one requires me to hit the ground...

[Warhunt]

If healer is ok healing me, dps are fine= put 2/3 bits of dps gear on, mark skull, deal with it

If healer isn't ok, and dps are pulling = Start marking CC targets, deal with it

Always mark a skull at least, kill that first then by that point DnD and spreaded diseases, coupled with heart strike cleave damage, have done ALL the work for me. Sod paladins with their AOE, it's all about the Ding King (DK...)

[Beace]

I absolutely despise tanks that don't know how to mark stuff. It's not harder than putting up a skull, and possibly a cross or whatever to be focused down second. If you do this, then most of the time dps will focus properly, rarely you get some retarded dps that still dps random targets. It should take you 2 seconds to mark the targets, and it'll be so much smoother.

Speaking for myself, my standard is to mark a skull and have dps focus down it. By the time it's dead, I'll have more than enough threat on anything else in the pack, and I let them pick their own targets. If I see something going down faster than others, I'll usually switch to it and help it go down faster, and keep threat up. It's not rocket science, but a lot of tanks simply fail at it. Take the few seconds needed to mark things, and you'll find things simply go so much smoother. And if you're still having problems, chances are you're simply a bad tank, just like there are bad dps and healers.

And if you haven't already, at least keybind skull, so you can mark on-the-fly, without spending 5 seconds doing it with your mouse.

[iidesu]

i think this thread will be helpful to new members

[Deleted]

Attacking random targets? Are you absolutely certain you're telling the whole story? I know theres some dumb DPS out there but that just sounds outlandish.

Or maybe they're the smart ones?

I quit playing as DPS at the beginning of Wrath. I really just hated the way that the role had been boiled down to nothing more than a single homogenised context-less number. "I do XXX dps", "everyone needs to do at least YYY dps", "you suck I do ZZZ dps on my lvl 60 hunter". Really? What class are you? What spec? What are you attacking? Patchwerk? Training dummies? AoE-ing trash mobs? RoS phase 2? Critters?

The "community" these days are just so obsessed with that little number that Recount/Skada spews out, that nothing else matters. And of couse, people base their own "dps" number off a 6 minute blow all cooldowns, stand still & nuke boss fight, and everyone else's "dps" number off a trash-pack that dies in under 10 seconds.

You don't have to look far to see this. I remember reading threads on this very forum after Cata's release where many wise sages nodded in agreement with each other that an average of 6k dps was the ball-park figure to aim for to complete heroics. Now however, the figure 6k is frequently used to ridicule people. I've even seen posts by people that say they vote-to-kick anyone who doesn't manage 10k+ on the first trash pack in an instance.

So finally we get to my point (sorry about taking the long way round). Players are under so much pressure to make that little coloured recount bar as long as possible, so as to either be able to boast about it, or so as not to disappoint others and look inferior, that they will do whatever it takes, and at whatever cost, to achieve this.

Trash packs? Blow cooldowns & start nuking before the tank has even charged in (or pulled all the mobs to him/her)! Look at those numbers fly!! Hmmm, but the problem with that is that if you go for the one marked with the skull, the one everyone is supposed to focus on first, then it will be dead before you've got your full optimal rotation off on it. I know, if I pick my own target, one that no-one else is nuking, then I will have more time to spend on it, I can use my full rotations, get all my DoTs ticking, make the most of my trinkets/cooldowns, and reach my optimal "dps"...

..And because I got here using the LFD tool, if I pull aggro and die, then I can just blame everyone else, tell them how much they suck, and leave the group!

This is my theory on why people often ignore marked targets, and single-target "random" mobs. I also have a theory about Brontasaurus', but that's another story...

TL;DR? Yeah.

[MildCore]

Psh tab target? No way would I put that much effort into a heroic, tanks already do the most work to finish the run as it is. If the group isn't CCing and the dps can't be bothered to assist you or use the aforementioned macro they can pull aggro and die for all I care. They'll either learn quick or spend 60g repairing at the end up to them. Good of you to provide the macro for well intentioned dpsers tho.

Really? I tab shadow word pain And full dot skull (if it has a lot of hp) then tab mindflay. Well actually that's what I used to do. Now mind sear is op and I there are at least 4 mobs I'll probably just mind sear + maybe some dots on a mIn target depending on hp. Is it too hard for you guys I aoe tank? I thought that's all everyone did in wrath because it was so easy and fast, and honestly cata has already become wrath so why are you people complaining about? Shits easy mode already. And we don't even have a major content patch. I actually enjoy y Mage more doing a pyro crit living bomb then combust blast wave impact spread. Nice doing 30-50k dps and watching the trash drop in seconds. Haven't tried Mage in 4.1 though might be different. But I usually have to use mirror images or fade when I do these things and usually only the poor tanks have a hard time holding threat then. I just feel bad For the fury/frost melee out there.

---------- Post added 2011-04-28 at 05:52 AM ----------

Oh someone else made a good point I also agree with. Some tanks are just dumb and don't know instances. They mark skull and x on random targets. I only follow kill orders if theyre correct. I sometimes try correcting people but apparently they can't read English. btw kill orders are typically:

Like honestly. Mark healers and summoners as skull. Those summoners in stonecore for example. How often do I see tanks mark random shot when there are two summoner in te pack? Not only do they not prioritize them, they don't even grab or tank them. Theyll summon dozens of imps that also go untankes. As a shadowlriest I often decide fuck it. I reduce all damage taken with shadow form. They're only casting spells, I'm pretty much just as good as a tank and if he's not smart enough to get t, I'll just kill it and the adds myself.

Sometimes I even get groups where the tank marks stupidly, but all the dps choose the proper targets (healers or summoners) and no one complains and the instance gets done fine. I figure te tank probably doesn't even notice since the mob dies so fast. The healer doesn't care because e knows were doing a favor. And as long as the tank holds threat on everything else, were all happy.