I am trying to find a more effective method to quick target swap additional mobs to put DoTs on in larger pulls. This mostly comes into play in Mythic Dungeons, but also Horrific visions lately.
I originally was using the in-game Tab Targeting system. However, it became obvious how flawed it was (for me at least), because it kept cycling between the same handful of mobs I’ve already put a DoT on. Leaving others untouched.
Example. There is a group of 5. Call them, A, B, C, D, and E.
With tab Targeting I would Start with A, then tab to B, then C, then return to either A or B, and having to spam tab to find D and E. Which is a waste of precious time to damage. I am unsure if there is a global reset on Tab as “It has been x long since you targeted A so I will reset the targeting feature”, or if the Tank moved the groups which changed their orientation and the Distance from me. Making Tabbing go from closer - farther, ignoring mobs already missed.
Then I started with Name Plate addons, which is fine if I play Ranged and don’t have to dodge mechanics. But, if I play my Assassin Rogue for example and have only a few seconds to Garrote everything I can. I resort to tabbing again, which then makes me double Garrote the same target in my spam to use it while Subterfuge is up. (I know, git gewd)
Long story short.
What is an effective was you found to Multi Dot? Any tips you can give?
I used a smaller group of 5 for example, but a lot of the time there larger groups.
Tab targetting is what it is. I’m not sure there’s much you can do to improve it. At one point it seems like you could use some cVars to swap between the newer and older tab targetting logic, but I don’t know if that’s still a thing. (And neither one was perfect.) You might want to try asking in the UI and macro forum where you’ll find more people who really dig into what the UI can do.
You can set them up as mouseovers so you don’t have to swap targets to cast a dot. The main disadvantage to this is you need to be very careful with where your mouse is when you use those skills as it’s easier to hit the wrong target. (And can be tricky if the nameplates are moving a lot.)
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][]Garrote
That’s a pretty basic harmful spell mouseover macro. If you want something a bit safer, you could try:
/cast [@mouseover, harm, nodead, mod:shift][]Garrote
Which will cast it normally if you just hit it, but on your mouseover target when you hold down shift. (So you can tab target to get the ones where that works, but swap to the mouseover method when tab starts cycling back to already dotted targets.)
In the end, no matter what method you use, it will come down to practice to get consistent results. There is really no great method to do this. It’s about finding what works best for you.
1 Like
Hey there:)
I think in legion is when the conic logic for tab targeting was introduced. I was playing affliction at the time and multi dot’ing was something I spent some time getting my head and hands around. I played shaman in the front back half of legion and front half BFA, multi-target flame shock uptime is a big deal for ele and resto to some extent. I do everything Druid now, balance, and feral to a certain degree, have the same multi-dot’ing business.
I’d first recommend binding next/prev target to mouse wheel scroll up/down, this has been HUGE in the way of very quickly cycling targets and multi-dot’ing, keeping my left hand free to move/cast etc.
What I’ve noticed is that in the current conic target logic, the game seems to make instant reassessments of what your next/prev targets are/where based on your position, mob proximity to you and your frontal cone. I find that standing completely still is the only way to cycle all of the targets in my cone and maintain the A,B,C,D,E order, if the mobs don’t move. Stearing/turning/strafing input, or mob movement, seams to cause the game to alter the order of targets; I’m pretty sure it reorders them by proximity to my new position and/or by what is the most relative to my forward facing position.
I find this to be a non-issue with balance and ranged in general as mouseover macros almost completely solve this, you’ll generally not be tangled up in the mele mess, and mostly all of your targets move far less relative to your position than when in mele. I might also just make a point to firmly stear my toon in the direct of what I’m trying to target. Strafing while stearing is also your friend in this case.
This, however, is more complicated in mele as even mouseover macros can’t overrule the nameplate over lapping logic of what ever addon you may be using or the default nameplates. I find that in Feral I just need to be real fast global to global with the scroll wheel to rake as many targets upfront. This is where just standing super still, if you can, when multi dot’ing seams to help. Mouseovers may help a bit here, but in the moment it may be better to just cut your losses if cycling through targets recycles previous ones and execute your rotation while repositioning and try again after spending/dumping resources.
Hope this helps!
1 Like
Visible nameplates, visible nameplate debuffs, mouseover and focus macros.
You can go a step further and start using something like elvui’s stylized features that’ll recolor a nameplate if it’s missing a dot, or the timer is decreasing, or something like platter which has even more customization.
Tab targeting has always been a hard habit for me to break but eventually it just became too much of an issue to use it, than to not.
Most nameplates have visibility settings to determine the clickable size of a nameplate separate from the actual size, alpha on your target or on casting / marked mobs, options to hide nameplates entirely on yellow (neutral) enemies, clamp to screen, overlap/stack/spread, etc. So the choice is there to setup it for what your preferences are in order to make it easier when 5 enemies are on the screen or even 8-10.
It does get to the point where if your ever fighting 15+ enemies chances are your going to tab target or click anything. That will happen with everyone.