Hiya guys and gals,

Now that I've MA'd for a few raids, I thought I would post a guide on how to MA so others can try, and so my methods can be tweaked by those of you more experienced than I.

As an MA, you should do the following:

1.  Don't die.  If you die, the raid loses their target and chaos reigns supreme.  DPS goes down while everyone scrambles to target the mob directly or target the MT.  If you are a melee class and can't survive the AE's, sit back with the casters and watch while you do your targeting job.

2.  Don't watch the parse.  If you get distracted by trying to do more DPS, you will not be changing targets as fast as you can.  Don't worry about hitting all your hot buttons as fast as you normally do because your job is targetting, not DPSing.

3.  Make macros for "/target maintank" and "/assist maintank %T".  The first macro will target the main tank and let you see what he is targeting.  The second macro is to directly target the MT's target so that the rest of the raid can begin DPS.

4.  When the MT pulls, target the MT.  Do not target the MT's target until the MT has the target set in position.

5.  When the raid complains that you are not targeting fast enough, politely explain that you are doing it on purpose so that the MT can position the enemy and build some hate.

6.  The instant the first target goes down, spam the macro to target the MT's target until you get a target.  Then, stop hitting the macro so you don't change off that target if the MT has to target something else for aggro control purposes.  If the MT does not immediately target something, you will not get a target and the raid will complain that you are targeting too slow.  See rule 5.

7.  In some situations, like the Amorphous Drake in Deathtoll or Uncaged Alzid in Labs, the mob will spawn adds that need to be killed as soon as possible.  The MA should position himself so that he has the best field of view of the fight without having any other mobs in view.  The MA targets the main mob when the fight begins, and then presses the TAB key once per second to immediately detect and switch to a new spawn.  Once the spawn is burned down, repeat.  If there are no spawns up, then the TAB key will retarget the main mob.

8.  When the raid leader announces to the raid that mobs have to be killed in a certain order, it is the MT's job to target them in that order, not the MA's.  The MA will still target the MT's targets throughout the fight.

9.  The only raiders who should be targeting someone besides the MA are healers, mana regen (coercers and illusionists), and hate transfer chars in the MT group that help the MT build hate by attacking early.  Most raid members know how to control their own aggro well enough most of the time and may not like to target through the MA.  This is understandable, but the raid leader, MT, and MA may have other reasons besides aggro control to direct the DPS of the raid to specific targets.  If not everyone is targeting through the MA, this becomes much more difficult to manage.

10.  In some cases, an encounter has to be off-tanked.  If the raid force is killing the off tank's targets while the MT keeps other mobs busy, then make a "/assist splittank %T" macro before the fight.  Use this macro to target the off tank's targets.  If the off tank has a hard time keeping aggro, then you'll need another macro to just target the off tank.  Target the off tank when he switches to a new mob, but wait about 3 seconds before targeting his target.  That will let him build up some extra aggro before the raid force throws down.

11.  The MA should call out in Ventrilo when the enemy switches targets.  This lets the MT know he has lost or regained aggro and lets the healers know who to try to keep up.  It also lets the players know that they've pulled unexpected aggro (which I suppose the will find out when they instantly die).  The MA can only see one target at a time, so all raid members should still call out aggro from adds or any other sources besides the primary target.

12.  If you get a new piece of fabled gear and raid leader says he needs you to pull the next encounter...its a trick.  Don't listen.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I've enjoyed blowing off work to type it.  Please let me know if you have additional tips or if you think I've gotten something wrong.

Thanks!

Thoral