Can you use:
/tar Explosive
to select an Explosive in the middle of a big scrum of bad guys?
Or do you explicitly have to click them?
Edit to add the following:
Ok - wowhead says they are considered totems so target macros do not work. You can tab target to them, or you can click or mouseover them. 
You cannot use a target macro.
Looks like threat plates has an option to handle totems so you can stack the name plates and make the Explosive names 150% bigger.
What is the best way to handle them? Twice now I have been in groups where we have been overwhelmed by them. I am guessing that pulling two or 3 packs at a time is not recommended? There are so many on my Ret Pally I didn’t have enough GCD’s to get all of them. I counted 7 and got 3… In the last run I was in. (Tanks bailed on both runs.)
Edit - GCD is wrong… Because the abilities are instant cast. (shame - I feel stupid now) But it’s like there were so many I just… couldn’t process them all. ha ha
That means there were only 4 for the other 4 people, who presumably "not my job"ed it. Instead of “wasting” 1 GCD each, they allowed your group to wipe.
In my experience, runs where everyone more or less fights for explosive kills like they give a dps buff go the best. If everyone leaves it up to 1-2 people, things usually go less well.
As far as pulling 2-3 packs, if everyone’s ready for it, and helping do explosives, it can be done fairly easily. It’s just when the tank plows ahead with no communication what they’re doing, then you have a trail of explosives all over the place, that it becomes bad news.
Group play is the way to handle them. The healer and tank should be able to get most of them, but when there are 4+ orbs up, it is the DPS’s obligation to help. If orbs are constantly going off, the tank should know better and pull smaller.
You can also line-of sight them. Useful in places like Sanguine Depths for big pulls like those packs of witches. Start the fight in their spawn room, then run outside and around the corner when the balls spawn.
With explosives having a good WA, a clean UI and a mouse over macro makes a world of difference. If you are just relying on seeing them and clicking through a sea of overlapping nameplates…or worse… tab targeting, you are setting yourself up for failure.
Get a WA that immediately tells you if an orb spawns, make sure your name plates are set up so they are easily seen and make yourself a mouse over macro to kill them.
Ideally the healer should be able to get 60-80% but many won’t be able to or feel it’s not their “job”. The problem with dps getting them is the issue of overlaps. 3 people attempting to kill an orb is 3 gcds lost even though only 1 actually killed the orb. Also, many dps specs are extremely bad at killing them. Even if you have a good healer getting most of them, they still might need help during times of heavy damage though.
How much time do you think is sacrificed by a dozen or so overlapped GCDs?How much time do you think is lost to one or more wipes because no one wanted to risk their GCD being overlapped?
Do you think the answer of the first question is worth enough to risk the answer of the second question?
The healer should be getting the vast majority so it shouldn’t even be an issue for the dps, but it’s more than a “dozen or so”. With dps regularly getting orbs you’re probably talking closer to a 100+ lost gcds over the course of a dungeon. We are talking a potential of 4 lost gcds per orb. You would only need 35 or so orbs in which 3 or more people attempting to kill them to reach well over 100.
It’s better than nobody getting them and wiping, but it’s worse than the healer getting most with the tank picking up the slack so the dps almost never have to worry about them.
I don’t think anyone has suggested that dps players take primary responsibility for them. I know I have personally restricted it to large pulls with a lot of orbs spawning quickly and places like Mistcaller where they are spread out and a range dps or two paying attention can avert problems.
And I’m only talking about 4-5 places per dungeon where it would be an issue, so worst case scenario, 12-15 overlaps.
Sure, if the majority of the time the dps aren’t touching them then yeah, we don’t disagree…but I see a lot of people suggest that everyone should regularly be pitching in.
I guess it depends. As a healer (especially as a druid), I am pretty comfortable handling explosives most of the time. The exception to this is when dps likes to step in bad, or it’s a particularly heavy pull with a lot of damage and I need to focus on heals.
I realize going for explosives tanks your dps… it also has a pretty big impact on tank thread and a healer’s ability to keep the group alive. I figure not wiping is probably more important than top dps.
It’s nice when the group just kind of handles it… I play probably 95% of my high keys in a regular group, so we usually just know when I’m going to need help, but I can also call for it. In a pug though… I have no idea how people can communicate, on the fly, that they need help with explosives.
It might just be safer to assume it’s everybody’s job at that point, keep an eye on explosives that are getting on towards blowing up, and then just handle it.
I feel like this is great advice for an organized group where people play properly…because explosive week in PuGville is…uh…not always that.
And this is exactly the reason “everybody’s job” is often the best way for PuGs, particularly below the level where everyone really knows what they are doing.
Some DPS specs have it pretty bad, like Demo locks, for example. Some, like Havoc can handle it easily with minimal loss compared to other specs.
I just use a mouseover macro for sw:death and enjoy limitless insanity and 45+ second benders.
I’ve heard of ways to have a keybind hide all nameplates but explosives. Not sure if it was and addon or what. Haven’t had enough problems dealing with explosives to look into it further.