Marking - what's it all mean? (what icons for what?)

Having always played healers before, I never really learned the marking schemes people use - I was watching the party and doing my own mental calculations of who to focus on rather than mobs.

Now I've got me a tankadin, and well, tanks are generally the ones that mark, and I have no idea if I should be putting a skull, moon, blue square, purple diamond, or whatever on this or that target...

So...

How do you mark, what gets what and if there's a reason, why?
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Skull means kill.
Follow the skull.

(alt-down = mark skull)
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There is no "right way" to mark. Usually a group who plays together often knows their tanks marking scheme and there is no discussion. My personal marks are:

Skull - kill first
X - kill second
Triangle - kill third
Moon - sheep
Star - second sheep
Diamond - sap or seduce
square - ice block
circle - banish

Obviously since I usually AOE tank most everything I most frequently only use skull and X. But if I happen to want something CCed, those are the marks that I use. I hate hate hate ice traps so squares are a very rare thing for me

Though Skull and X are fairly universal First- and Second- kill marks, they vary completely from raiding group to raiding group.

Personally, when I lead a raid, other than Skull and X as mentioned above, I assign marks differently in each raid, and sometimes within each pull. This ensures, IME, that people MUST pay attention and stay focused the entire raid. (Note: We do usually reserve the Moon for some kind of CC, when we need CC, so I hardly ever use that for any kind of DPS mark).

If you have a close core group of consistent raiders who always play together, I would suggest setting marks that are consistent all the time. If your raiding group consists of 40+ players (as ours does), you sometimes have to trick them into paying attention and staying on the same page.
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Same for me,

Skull = Kill First
X = Kill Second
Star & Condom = Sheep (just cuz they are the first 2 symbols and are faster to click on)


As for the rest, For some reason I like to "color coordinate" raid symbols =D

green triangle = sleep/root cuz the Zzzzzs are green and druids are nature based.
white moon = shackle cuz priests are...............pure and white....(dun laugh).
Blue Square = Hunter's trap cuz the trap is blue in colour.
Purple Diamond = Banish cuz locks are always purplish.

But for 5-mans, I mainly only use Skull. If you see skull, kill it, if not, leave it alone. When my first target is almost dead, I swap to 2nd target and place skull on it so the DPSers can finish off the original skull and start on the new skull.

I have a macro I use that works well

/p Kill order is: Skull / X / Orange / Triangle ... moon is sheep..square is trap

But rogues usually find a need to try to sap the orange and mages get upset when theres never any poly on a run

... by the time they switch off of Skull to another target they should all be superglued to ya
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Skull: Kill this
Everything else: Consecrate. (Sorry, I had to. )

OK, now for a more honest one:

Skill: 1st kill
X : second kill (seems to be relatively universal)
Square: ice trap
moon: CC (usu sap or sheep)
triangle: another CC (rare that Iget this far)

I like square for hunter trap, as I always preferred that on my hunter.
I use moon for something to be CCed -- sap, sheep, whatever. If I have multiple such CCers, I ask them if they have a preference. I've had mages ask for the condom, or for the diamond, for example.

Normally, I'll say, "... okay, I'm using the moon for the {sheep/sap} target.", and that's fine. When I'd mark as a hunter, usually we never got past 2ish CCs in 5-mans anyway, and as a paladin ... Just Kill the Skull and then assist me.

Then again, I'm a lazy raid marker.

I usually mark a skull. Focus DPS on that, and do not AOE. once the skull is dead, pick a target at will, or open with AOE abilities. they'll have been in my consecrate long enough that you won't be pulling aggro.
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i put the sensual

back into nonconsensual

I (and most of my guild) use the colour order of the marks in the list.

Yellow is first killed, Orange 2nd etc.

I have never used the skull, although I realise the vast majority do, since ORa uses this to mark players with debuffs in raids (I know you can change it, but skull always meant: MOVE OR DIE to me..)

I use blue and green for Mage CC, and pink and X for warlock CC usually, swapping a few for other types of CC if nessacary.

The MOON is resevered for the biggest nub in the group to carry around on their head.

Like someone said, there's not "Correct" way of doing this, so long as whoever's making sticks to their system and lets the group know before they start.
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My guild uses a stoplight marking system. Kill green, yellow, red. CC marks and such are somewhat variable depending on who needs to do what for each fight.
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Skull, X and Square are the only ones that seem universal. But then again theres always people that will mark a different way. Personally for me:

Skull - Kill first
X - Kill Second
Circle - Kill Third (If theres a pull where I actually need things killed in a certain order like nasty casters or healers or whatever)
Square - Trap
Moon - Sheep
Diamond - Seduce/Fear
Green - Banish/Enslave
Star - Sap

Generally I only mark Skull and X. I don't even bother telling people that they need to DPS skull down then X then whatever and I don't have any problems. The only time I do and I tell people they usually don't follow kill orders anyway and they think Consecrate means kill anything.
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We use the order of the marks in the dropdown:

star 1st, then circle, diamond, triangle

mobs to be CC'd are usually square, moon and/or cross

skull gets used infrequently because, as mentioned above, DBM likes to use skull for marking players


As you can see from the replies so far - it varies alot.
Make up your own system, or find out what's most common for your server/raid group/circle of friends and use that - there's no universal system.

you can hotkey the marks or use:
/script SetRaidTargetIcon("target", 8);

8 is the skull
7 would be cross
etc
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in 5 mans
skull first kill, cross second. After skull's at less than 50% start aoeing if you want.

25's it's a lot more complicated and we swap them often just so they don't fall asleep. But skull is always first kill on trash

It's all up to you how you mark em, just warn the others what what means.
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I use the following macro sometimes:

/p Assist me on %t
/raid Assist me on %t
/script SetRaidTarget("target",8)

It tells the party and raid to assist, and marks my target with skull. It only works with group/raid leadership, or assistant privileges in a raid. I find it useful when there are a lot of targets and one or two dangerous / low hp / annoying mobs that you want focused down quickly.

You can also go into the Key Bindings interface (just hit ESC then click on Key Bindings) if you want to set keys for frequently-used raid icons.

As a Paladin tank, I'd be more concerned about finding corners that block line of sight for each pull. Toss your shield, duck around the corner, consecrate, holy shield right before you get hit and you're good to go on 90% of the pulls out there.
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Last seen wearing...

Skull kill first

then kill random targets
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