I’ve always played ranged classes and now I’m learning melee classes and it’s such a struggle for me?
In most video games, if you’re swinging a sword, you hit whatever is in front of you. But in wow I have to select the person in front of me or my abilities don’t work… which is very difficult in pvp or when fighting a large group cause what is in front of me changes frequently.
Is there a macro or something that will just target whoever I’m facing? Or some trick people use to get around this?
(at least now I understand why people are always hopping around in pvp. I used to be like… why bother, my spells will hit you no matter where you are… lol)
I’m confused, it’s just like playing a ranged class except you have to be closer to the target. With a ranged class, you still need to target someone, whether that’s from manually clicking on them, tabbing around, or having them hit you first.
I just click on people with my mouse. Especially when I see them coming or when I’m running towards them. You do it in advance.
I think the difference is just in my brain, because being melee feels like I’m playing any other action game and I just wanna hack and slash through a big pile of people and instead it’s like “i need to target something! i’m out of range! i’m facing the wrong way!”
I use tab but it’ll often focus on someone far ahead of me instead of the closest person. I’ll work on it lol.
Another thing i would like to mentioned was, if you move within melee range and the target is in front of you, using any ability will also auto target it…
This is just one of the struggles that is life as melee. Wait until you start trying to do mechanics (“But the void zone is right behind the boss!”) It’s a skill that takes practice. As has been stated, attempting to use any ability will automatically target and start attacking your nearest mob. As long as you’re not drowning in targets, tab targeting works pretty well to let you shift between mobs. The only other melee general advice I can give you is to look at your nameplates. A good nameplate addon (I let ElvUI handle my nameplates personally, Plater is another great one) can go a long way. Taking time to play around with it and make sure it’s set up to present information to you in the best way possible for you to select targets can dramatically improve how well you do. Hitbox size is a factor to, sometimes it’s obvious, but then often they’re way too big or too small for certain mobs, and the only solution is experience with the content.
Warrior specific, this is one of the reasons we charge. There’s the rage and the speed components, but it also takes care of the issue of positioning with respect to your target. Whirlwind is omnidirectional and has a slightly longer range than our standard abilities, so when mechanics or just normal shenanigans make it difficult to hit the right target, it tends to be the go-to.
Personally I turn off every nameplate except for enemies. Friendly nameplates are nothing but noise to me and I find they do like you say, just get in the way. If you set them to stack instead of overlap, that helps considerably with keeping track of them all.
Generally speaking, i always use Tab-key to swap target in pack of mobs fight. And like Aedan say, turned on enemy nameplate, is really handy in tracking spell casting in pack of mobs.
For example, at Orgozoa phase 2 fight, i always keep track of the witch spell casting, when it try to cast conductive pulse to do aoe stun, i will quickly press tab to switch target and pummel it to stop the casting before continue cleaving both Orgozoa and witch.
Ever try using a mouseover pummel macro? M+ casts can be so fast and unpredictable you gotta be targeting the mob, but with a slow, predictable cast like the one you describe it works exceptionally well.