Savos

Is there a way to improve the targeting in Warcraft via mods or some settings?

Usually when I try to get multiple specific mobs in a big pack (Faerlina for example if I am trying to get two of them) I have immense difficulty actually targeting the second mob after the first few threat actions on mob one especailly when they are still largely grouped up. Once I can get the second on me there is no problem but I'd like to try and reduce the possibility of a healer getting obliterated.

I usually run with target plates on so I can see the health bars and click those but in a moving group they are not practical to work with. Does turning them off help at all?

Seems like a useful thing to improve especially with the requirements in TBC on tanking multiple mobs in the 5-man dungeons.

 

Schnappi

There is a new focus system in macro's. You can set a specific mob as "focus" and then refer to it in targetting macro's with that name.

I dont know how it works exactly, but that should help a lot in Faerlina-like encounters.

 

Shavnir

oTweaks can increase the range on tab targeting. You can get it off wowace.com.

You can also have it set your camera to be really far away, which is fun.

 

Savos

Tab targeting is pretty bad for finding a specific mob in a largish group of mobs however. It works fine for switching targets and sundering that one or whatever when you are the only tank but I have difficulty picking out the specific mob.

Maybe just tab/tab/tab/tab/trab/CTRL-tab to find the other one with the proper raid icon or something I guess.

 

Juno

It's kinda like when you're trying to tank a few dogs in MC, and you need to find your targets in that mess of a doggypile. Name plates move too much so hard to focus on some. It'd be nice if you could get a list with all hostile targets you're in combat with in a little frame that you can click on, but doubt that'd work now.
Another way that I think could work, but a bit of a hassle, is that you could target a mob with a specific raidicon through a macro. I don't know the specific macro though, but when it was first released, I remember one where you could just target a raidicon, for pseudo, something like /target [Raidicon=1/Star]. Don't know if that'd help you in that fight though.

 

Shavnir

Ah I forgot to mention. I keep my tab / shift tab targeting set to my mousewheel. With oTweaks I can pretty much face the mobs and just mousewheel a bit until I see the one I want, but that only helps if there's distinguishing features I guess (different name, raid icon, etc etc)

 

Mimesis

a good unit frame like AGUF with a big raid icon on your target would help you to know that you have just tabbed onto the right mob

 

• Apate

For a while at least, Paintball could target certain raid icons by mousing over the masses. EDIT: This won't work anymore since you can't programmatically target.

If you play around with Tab radius in oTweaks, you can find one that suits you and that helps also. I can usually get a particular mob within 2 tabs by swiveling either my character or my camera (I forget which it effects).

I hate tanking in multi-mob situations (on of the major reasons I am not Prot), though, so I can't say that it would work well there.

See you, auntie.
"You don't need a machine to make a rainbow. For rainbows are made of happy thoughts, and dreams, and chocolate unicorns, and gumdrops, and licorice sunsets, and fuzzy gumdrop bears, and sugar-coated chocolate gumdrop land."

Originally Posted by DeeNogger I am coming for you Apate.

 

sp00n

Does someone remember the behaviour how using tab works?
I know I have read it somewhere in this forum, but cannot find it again. I think knowing how tab works benefits, as you can guess how often you will have to press tab to select the correct target.


(Also I think this thread would be appropiate for this information.)

Item Ranking Rogue [horribly outdated]

 

◊ Kyth

If Blizzard would expose the underlying mob numbering (they have to use one) for identically named mobs, not only would it make this easier, but it would make it far less obnoxious as a warlock to be managing dots in a raid on more than two mobs ("is this my corruption on this mob or someone else?") -- dot timer mods only go so far, they have bugs, and they have to go through a lot of hoops to get around this. (a problem that I think only tanks share; healers can see their HoT's easily as players are named differently, and the other dps classes are either purely AE'ing or purely single-targetting.)

There were so many things (and mods I wrote) that worked in PvP beautifully simply because I could identify each unit with a unique name :/.

* Sunwell strats: http://strats.fusion-guild.org/
* InTheBuff: WotLK raid buff checklist

 

Trilly

Tab selects targets from the far left of your screen to the right.

 

Northerner

Not having the a_Dark_Skitterling_0029 information accessible is completely and entirely intended. It's one of many design decisions that I'm still not 100% sold on but it was one based on good reasoning at the time. Blizzard has always walked a fine line between customizing and automating and especially in the days before raid icons this was part of that line. As Apate stated already though, Paintball or similar can pretty much achieve the effect without accessing the server-side mob ID#.

 

sp00n

The explanation was a bit more precise if I remember correctly.
What happens if two mobs are on the very left, but one is bit farther away than the other. Does it first select the near target, than after that the next one to his right side? Or the one behind him?

Item Ranking Rogue [horribly outdated]

 

• Deris

This would be awesome.

Is it possible to autoassist someone's focus target? What if you had 5 people set their focus targets to 5 different mobs and made the bars based off of that? Or if the raid leader could assign specific target boxes (raid icons) to targets - that'd be extremely nice as well.

 

Juli

It may be helpful to find/write a UI mod that uses your Focus target to automatically help you keep track of mobs a little bit. You could have a mod that basically turns your focus frame into a "last target frame" so that any time you switch targets, your focus becomes your previous target. This would make it much easier to switch between 2-3 targets without as much "aiming" and having to click on nameplates/creature models. You could also just do this to a lesser extent manually by making good use of focus and just adding some /focus /clearfocus buttons to your UI next to your focus frame.

The biggest help though is to just get really really good at clicking on stuff. Try adjusting your camera angle and zoom distance - it will be weird at first but sometimes going from more horizontal to top down or vice versa can help. You also need to be good at clicking around the v-target bars and just clicking on models because sometimes the v-target bars jump around or arent directly next to the mob you want to get. With practice though you can get a feel for where the v-target bars will be even if its not next to the mob. Theres lots of good exercises to improve your reflexes and accuracy. I found playing my paladin/priest in pvp (AV in particular) with ctrl-V bars, showing both friendly and enemy plates, and just ignoring party/raid frames was not only effective for healing and damage dealing, but great practice for targeting with a dps class or tanking class too. You could also try other things to improve your manual targeting like playing some PC FPS's with mouselook, or whack-a-mole type flash games that have you click on fast moving objects with your mouse.

 

◊ Bekah

If you're trying to pull 2 out of a pack, the focus system can work very nicely. If you're trying to manage targets beyond 2-3 though, you're going to have issues.

You can have an extra targeting window specifically for watching your focus- AG_UF has that built in, the normal blizzard bars do not.

Ex:


I set my focus by typing /focus while targeting the mob I wish to keep as my focus. (Actually I have a macro that does it when I hit the F key. There might even be a keybinding option for it, but I never checked.)

That target, the fawn with the X in the above picture, will occupy that target frame as long as it's my focus. I can target it by clicking on that bar, or by /tar focus. I can assist it by /assist focus. I often set my focus to the main assist when dpsing, or to the maintank when healing. I added it into my shackle and sheeping (alt mage) macros along with automatically setting a specific charm on the mob if I have assist. (so when I shackle it makes the shackled mob my focus AND puts a moon over it.)

You can change your focus at any time If your focus dies, it will clear the focus. Base blizzard frames won't show your focus as a seperate window, but all of the /tar and /assist stuff will work. I believe you can also do some more fancy work with focus like healing your focus without losing your current target, but that's beyond my limited macro'ing.

So for the OP, you'd set your focus to the SECOND mob you want to target after the pull, then target the first mob you want to target. Bash away at the first mob, then /target focus and bash away at #2. Then pull your two aggro'd mobs out of the pile so they're easier to see =) If you're more interested in pulling the one in the crowd that's going after a specific person, focus that person, have them target it, assist, and you've got that target. You can do it on the fly, or if you're just supposed to be protecting a specific person you can have them focused form the start.

It's kinda limited beyond two mobs though since you can't focus more than one at a time. But that's what charms are for!

 

Juli

It's not just left to right. It targets the mob directly left of center first. If you want to target a particualr mob, clear your target if you've been tabbing through mobs, then place the mob directly left of center screen and hit tab.

 

• Apate

Imagine a line that moves leftish (sorry) from your character, then clockwise around the screen. This is roughly the path that tab follows. It's hard to explain well, but easy enough to test and get a "feel" for.

See you, auntie.
"You don't need a machine to make a rainbow. For rainbows are made of happy thoughts, and dreams, and chocolate unicorns, and gumdrops, and licorice sunsets, and fuzzy gumdrop bears, and sugar-coated chocolate gumdrop land."

Originally Posted by DeeNogger I am coming for you Apate.

 

Savos

Good information all, I'll definitly have to try some of these things the mods I'd used previous (and the base install basicly now) weren't very good at this sort of thing.

 

Grayson Carlyle

It's been a few weeks, but isn't it possible to target mobs by clicking on their raid icon? I'm pretty sure that's how I did it at Faerlina.

 

alienangel

Just a thought, I believe you can use "mouseover" as the target designation in a macro too. So if you only want to target a different mob for a single ability, you should be able to just mouse over it (raid icons and a tooltip mod that show raid icons make this easier) and hit a keybind for a macro that uses mouseover targetting. I've never done it myself, but if it still works I'd think it would be handy.

I keep meaning to make a /cast [target:mouseover] Silencing Shot macro, but never get around to looking up the syntax.

 

Joy

/cast [target=mouseover] 'spellname'


Very effective for Dispelling as it can target via raid windows as well as in game.

 

Nitz

Very useful for all-sorts of healing related actions (decurse, dispell). For example, you can heal on Moroes as a priest, with your shackle as target, to quickly recast your CC on it.

I liked it better when it was called Flourish.

 

sp00n

Excellent, that was my question. One more though, does the targetting depend on the point of view of your character or your camera?

Item Ranking Rogue [horribly outdated]

 

• Whiteknight