WoW offers a very simple and intuitive way to select targets: left-click to select, right-click to select+action (the primary action being attacking, in the case of a mob). Unfortunately, as we all know, this method is simple in theory, but often complicated in execution. The screen is too crowded with players and NPCs to select accurately, the target is too far away or at too much of an angle, the target is around a corner, etc. - all of these lead to problems in selecting targets.
After a successful run through ZF the other night, including retrieving the Divine-o-Matic Rod, LilLordHelen sent me the following e-mail:
Can you tell me how you select mobs to attack, especially when 9 gaziliion come at the group like last night? Even when it was just 2 or 3 mobs, I had trouble figuring out which one Wolfbrother was taking care of and which one(s) the rest of us were fighting. My screen just becomes a huge jumble of character names and mob health levels and mosh pit animated bodies. Your trick helped a lot, but I still felt like I was idle a lot of the time either figuring out who to fight or trying to get back in front of the mob I was supposed to be thwacking.I think we have all felt like that at one time or another. So, working on the assumption that right-click, though easy, is not the most effective way to select targets, here are some tips and tricks.
THE BASICS
1) Tabbing
The simplest way to select hostile targets (red) is by using the Tab key. Tab once to select the nearest target (within line of sight - unlike some other games, which will also select targets behind you). Tab again for the next closest target, etc. Shift-Tab goes "backwards" through targets from furthest to nearest. Because tabbing automatically selects the closest target, this can be a great way to distinguish which mob is closest when you can't quite tell from just looking at them.
While it's easy, it does have its problems. First, whatever code Blizzard is using is not perfect. Sometimes you get a target, sometimes you don't. I've run dozens of tests to try and determine why it works sometimes and not others, and I have no clue. So, it's not perfect, but experiment with it, and you'll get a feel for it. Second, it is distance limited. So is clicking, but clicking works at a greater range than tabbing. Blizzard has tried to hard to eliminate exploits, that they have come up with some dumb stuff like this. Oh well, you just have to live with it.
The most important limitation of tabbing, as far as I'm concerned, is that tab = a left-click. In other words, you select a target, but you do not activate attacking. In other words, if you tab select a mob and then run up to it, it will attack you, and you will stand there idly being beaten upon. So, you have to remember to activate attack. The default attack button is 1 (and it will still be for most people, unless you move it, as I do). So, Tab, then 1, selects a mob and puts you in attack mode, just as if you'd right-clicked. Many classes also have other skills that will put them into attack mode (such as the Charge skill for a warrior).
2) Just attack
Once a mob engages you in contact and actually hits you (it doesn't happen until they hit), they will automatically be selected as your target. At that point, all you have to do is attack (see above). This is true whether they’re behind you, chasing you, on the other side of a wall or whatnot. No need to mess around with pointing and clicking, just attack (of course, you still may need to turn or go around the wall for certain attacks to work). Why is this helpful? Well, I use it in 2 situations.
(A) When I am running (through an area or away from battle), as soon as something hits me, it is selected as my target. I can attack it, whether I can see it or click it or not. If you have spells that attack behind you, you can start attacking without ever turning around. For example, if my pally is running, and something attacks me, I hit my “Hammer of Justice” skill and stun them 5 secs. No muss, no fuss. I just keep on running and they are frozen in their tracks.
(B) When I am fighting multiple mobs. We’ve all been there. You’re fighting 2 or 3 (or 8) mobs. You drop one, and you must start attacking the next. Time is of the essence, but you end up scrolling around and clicking with the mouse trying to select something. 2 secs can often be the difference between victory and death. Well, using this technique, there is no need to select a mob – they “select you.” As soon as you drop the first mob, just hit the attack button (or another attack skill) and you’ll start going to town on the next mob. For tanks or anyone trying to control a crowd, this is critical knowledge.
The simplest way to select hostile targets (red) is by using the Tab key. Tab once to select the nearest target (within line of sight - unlike some other games, which will also select targets behind you). Tab again for the next closest target, etc. Shift-Tab goes "backwards" through targets from furthest to nearest. Because tabbing automatically selects the closest target, this can be a great way to distinguish which mob is closest when you can't quite tell from just looking at them.
While it's easy, it does have its problems. First, whatever code Blizzard is using is not perfect. Sometimes you get a target, sometimes you don't. I've run dozens of tests to try and determine why it works sometimes and not others, and I have no clue. So, it's not perfect, but experiment with it, and you'll get a feel for it. Second, it is distance limited. So is clicking, but clicking works at a greater range than tabbing. Blizzard has tried to hard to eliminate exploits, that they have come up with some dumb stuff like this. Oh well, you just have to live with it.
The most important limitation of tabbing, as far as I'm concerned, is that tab = a left-click. In other words, you select a target, but you do not activate attacking. In other words, if you tab select a mob and then run up to it, it will attack you, and you will stand there idly being beaten upon. So, you have to remember to activate attack. The default attack button is 1 (and it will still be for most people, unless you move it, as I do). So, Tab, then 1, selects a mob and puts you in attack mode, just as if you'd right-clicked. Many classes also have other skills that will put them into attack mode (such as the Charge skill for a warrior).
2) Just attack
Once a mob engages you in contact and actually hits you (it doesn't happen until they hit), they will automatically be selected as your target. At that point, all you have to do is attack (see above). This is true whether they’re behind you, chasing you, on the other side of a wall or whatnot. No need to mess around with pointing and clicking, just attack (of course, you still may need to turn or go around the wall for certain attacks to work). Why is this helpful? Well, I use it in 2 situations.
(A) When I am running (through an area or away from battle), as soon as something hits me, it is selected as my target. I can attack it, whether I can see it or click it or not. If you have spells that attack behind you, you can start attacking without ever turning around. For example, if my pally is running, and something attacks me, I hit my “Hammer of Justice” skill and stun them 5 secs. No muss, no fuss. I just keep on running and they are frozen in their tracks.
(B) When I am fighting multiple mobs. We’ve all been there. You’re fighting 2 or 3 (or 8) mobs. You drop one, and you must start attacking the next. Time is of the essence, but you end up scrolling around and clicking with the mouse trying to select something. 2 secs can often be the difference between victory and death. Well, using this technique, there is no need to select a mob – they “select you.” As soon as you drop the first mob, just hit the attack button (or another attack skill) and you’ll start going to town on the next mob. For tanks or anyone trying to control a crowd, this is critical knowledge.
GROUPS
Soloing and fighting with a group require very different techniques. It is not difficult to select a target in 1-on-1 or 1-on-2 situations, but, as Lil said earlier, in 5-on-5 or more, the screen gets crazy. So, here are some techniques tailored to group situations.
Also, keep in mind the “just attack” tip which I gave above. This is VERY VERY useful when your screen is full of friends and foes. Sometimes it is not as important who you attack, as long as you are attacking someone, so let the target select you, and then unleash hell on him!
3) The V Key
This goes directly to Lil’s point about not being able to tell who was attacking whom (and it is my fault for not explaining it to him the other night). WoW has a feature called “Show Name Plates.” Name plates are things like “Fruit Vendor” or guild names. By default, this feature is set “on” (in fact, when you log out and back in, it resets to “on”), and the default key is V. I think “Show Name Plates” is a terrible name, though, and I prefer to refer to this as the “health bar toggle” – because, when you toggle name plates “off” you get a health bar for all NPCs. In town, this can be incredibly annoying, but in a group fight, it’s critical – you must have the health bars showing.
Want to know which mob is closest to dying? With health bars showing, this is easy. Want to know whom everyone else is attacking? With health bars showing, you can easily figure it out because the health of one mob will be dropping very quickly. I will get into combat techniques in a later post, but, for discussion purposes here, the BASIC attack technique is (a) everyone on 1 mob and (b) attack the weakest first.2 There are many exceptions, but this is a basic technique. With health bars showing, it’s much easier to tell which mob everyone is attacking and (when that one dies) which mob is the next weakest one to attack. When there are “exceptions” to the rule, you will also need health bars to figure out how to apply the exceptions. So, health bars on in any kind of multi-mob situation.
BTW, another good tip: When the health bars are on, you can select a mob by clicking on the health bar. They kind of move around, so you can’t always tell which bar goes with which mob. But, the bars are easy to target with the mouse, and it’s easy to right-click the one with the lowest health.
4) Names
I guess it’s great that people have names over their heads in most situations, but, when you’re traveling in a group of 5 friends, shouldn’t you pretty much know who people are? I mean, yeah, Wolfbrother and Wolfspirit look similar, but one of them fires a gun and one swings a big sword. I can tell who is who without name plates. Go into “Interface Settings” and uncheck “Player Names” to clear up some room on your screen. Also, if running with a hunter (or a kitten) uncheck “Pet Name Plates” – we all recognize Hopper by now, right? Once you’re out of the dungeon, toggle names back on. And, if you think this means that it makes it harder to select your friends during combat, then you need to know about …
5) F1 – F5
Some of the most important keys in combat, F1 – F5 (default) allow you to select the members of your party. F1 is you, F2 is the first party member, F3 is next, etc. So, if I need to heal myself in combat, I hit the heal spell and F1 – I don’t click on myself, I don’t click on my portrait, etc. Keys are always faster and more accurate than clicking. When I have to buff a whole party, I do F1, buff, F2, buff, F3, buff, etc. Know these keys!!!!
6) Assisting – aka The F key
OK, this is where it gets really good! WoW has a feature called assist. There are a number of ways to invoke it, the most common being /assist (in chat window) and the F key (there are also add ons that improve assist functionality, but they are somewhat complicated, and no good unless everyone in the party is using them). Assist allows you to help someone out (just like it sounds). So, let’s say it’s me and Baltazzar against 5 mobs – the only way to win that fight is by coordinating our attacks and taking them 2-against-1 (2 of us against 1 of them). For whatever reason, I can’t tell from the health bars (or don’t have time to determine) which mob Baltazzar is attacking. I select Baltazzar (F2) and then assist (F) – this puts me on Baltazzar’s Target!!!
So, this is the answer to Lil’s question – can’t tell what mob everyone else is attacking, select one of them, then F, and you will automatically be on the same target. This is also great before combat. For instance, when Wolfbrother uses one of his skills to select a target way off in the distance, or when I know that Wolfie and are need to be on the same mob, instead of trying to click around, I just assist Wolfie. Voila! This works “in reverse” too. When Balt is going to sap someone, meaning that I don’t want to attack that target, I can “assist” Balt to get his target, and then Tab to the next target to make sure I don’t accidentally hit the sapped target.
Soloing and fighting with a group require very different techniques. It is not difficult to select a target in 1-on-1 or 1-on-2 situations, but, as Lil said earlier, in 5-on-5 or more, the screen gets crazy. So, here are some techniques tailored to group situations.
Also, keep in mind the “just attack” tip which I gave above. This is VERY VERY useful when your screen is full of friends and foes. Sometimes it is not as important who you attack, as long as you are attacking someone, so let the target select you, and then unleash hell on him!
3) The V Key
This goes directly to Lil’s point about not being able to tell who was attacking whom (and it is my fault for not explaining it to him the other night). WoW has a feature called “Show Name Plates.” Name plates are things like “Fruit Vendor” or guild names. By default, this feature is set “on” (in fact, when you log out and back in, it resets to “on”), and the default key is V. I think “Show Name Plates” is a terrible name, though, and I prefer to refer to this as the “health bar toggle” – because, when you toggle name plates “off” you get a health bar for all NPCs. In town, this can be incredibly annoying, but in a group fight, it’s critical – you must have the health bars showing.
Want to know which mob is closest to dying? With health bars showing, this is easy. Want to know whom everyone else is attacking? With health bars showing, you can easily figure it out because the health of one mob will be dropping very quickly. I will get into combat techniques in a later post, but, for discussion purposes here, the BASIC attack technique is (a) everyone on 1 mob and (b) attack the weakest first.2 There are many exceptions, but this is a basic technique. With health bars showing, it’s much easier to tell which mob everyone is attacking and (when that one dies) which mob is the next weakest one to attack. When there are “exceptions” to the rule, you will also need health bars to figure out how to apply the exceptions. So, health bars on in any kind of multi-mob situation.
BTW, another good tip: When the health bars are on, you can select a mob by clicking on the health bar. They kind of move around, so you can’t always tell which bar goes with which mob. But, the bars are easy to target with the mouse, and it’s easy to right-click the one with the lowest health.
4) Names
I guess it’s great that people have names over their heads in most situations, but, when you’re traveling in a group of 5 friends, shouldn’t you pretty much know who people are? I mean, yeah, Wolfbrother and Wolfspirit look similar, but one of them fires a gun and one swings a big sword. I can tell who is who without name plates. Go into “Interface Settings” and uncheck “Player Names” to clear up some room on your screen. Also, if running with a hunter (or a kitten) uncheck “Pet Name Plates” – we all recognize Hopper by now, right? Once you’re out of the dungeon, toggle names back on. And, if you think this means that it makes it harder to select your friends during combat, then you need to know about …
5) F1 – F5
Some of the most important keys in combat, F1 – F5 (default) allow you to select the members of your party. F1 is you, F2 is the first party member, F3 is next, etc. So, if I need to heal myself in combat, I hit the heal spell and F1 – I don’t click on myself, I don’t click on my portrait, etc. Keys are always faster and more accurate than clicking. When I have to buff a whole party, I do F1, buff, F2, buff, F3, buff, etc. Know these keys!!!!
6) Assisting – aka The F key
OK, this is where it gets really good! WoW has a feature called assist. There are a number of ways to invoke it, the most common being /assist (in chat window) and the F key (there are also add ons that improve assist functionality, but they are somewhat complicated, and no good unless everyone in the party is using them). Assist allows you to help someone out (just like it sounds). So, let’s say it’s me and Baltazzar against 5 mobs – the only way to win that fight is by coordinating our attacks and taking them 2-against-1 (2 of us against 1 of them). For whatever reason, I can’t tell from the health bars (or don’t have time to determine) which mob Baltazzar is attacking. I select Baltazzar (F2) and then assist (F) – this puts me on Baltazzar’s Target!!!
So, this is the answer to Lil’s question – can’t tell what mob everyone else is attacking, select one of them, then F, and you will automatically be on the same target. This is also great before combat. For instance, when Wolfbrother uses one of his skills to select a target way off in the distance, or when I know that Wolfie and are need to be on the same mob, instead of trying to click around, I just assist Wolfie. Voila! This works “in reverse” too. When Balt is going to sap someone, meaning that I don’t want to attack that target, I can “assist” Balt to get his target, and then Tab to the next target to make sure I don’t accidentally hit the sapped target.
AND SO
So, now I’ve given you a lot of different ways to select mobs (and party members) to make things run more smoothly in very mobby situations. As for myself, I would say that 90% of the time I target mobs by toggling health bars on (Name Plates off) with the V key, and then selecting mobs by right clicking on their health bars. Since I am scanning the bars anyway, to see which has the lowest health, it’s very easy to just go ahead and click the bar that I want to choose next. And, like most things in WoW, I use “anticipation,” which is to say that my mouse is “hovering” over the next bar that I’m going to click well before it’s time to actually click it. For party members, 95% of the time, I use F1-F5.3 The rest of the time, I use a combination of the above techniques for selecting mobs and party members.
If anyone has any other tips or comments, please post them as a comment or e-mail me and I will add them.
- Later, Laila
Footnotes:
So, now I’ve given you a lot of different ways to select mobs (and party members) to make things run more smoothly in very mobby situations. As for myself, I would say that 90% of the time I target mobs by toggling health bars on (Name Plates off) with the V key, and then selecting mobs by right clicking on their health bars. Since I am scanning the bars anyway, to see which has the lowest health, it’s very easy to just go ahead and click the bar that I want to choose next. And, like most things in WoW, I use “anticipation,” which is to say that my mouse is “hovering” over the next bar that I’m going to click well before it’s time to actually click it. For party members, 95% of the time, I use F1-F5.3 The rest of the time, I use a combination of the above techniques for selecting mobs and party members.
If anyone has any other tips or comments, please post them as a comment or e-mail me and I will add them.
- Later, Laila
Footnotes:
1 Incidentally, for anyone wondering, the term "mob" is an old acronym for "monster or beast." It comes from some of the oldest online RPGs - the term actually has nothing to do with the propensity of hostile NPCs to attack in groups, although you wouldn't know it sometimes.
2 Deviating from this rule causes all kinds of problems, including allowing mobs to live longer and deal more damage, not to mention pulling hate away from a tank and onto yourself.
3 I wish there was a way that I could rearrange the party members into an order that I like, but I can’t seem to figure that out. In fact, even the order that I invite members into the group doesn’t seem to work. If anyone knows of a way, please let me know. I suppose I could reassign shortcut keys so that, for instance, Baltazzar is always F2, regardless of his “position” in the party, but this has its own shortcomings.
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