<\/i><\/a>Watch Video<\/a><\/div>\nTarget Marking<\/h2>\n
“Marking” a target is placing a symbol over an ally or enemy\u2019s head to make them more easily identifiable.<\/p>\n
In Operations and Flashpoints, this can be used during fights against a lot of enemies to single out a target, so everyone in the group attacks it first instead of everyone attacking random targets. This is especially useful in boss fights with lots of enemies that you need to kill quickly.<\/p>\n
In boss fights, bosses that look similar are often marked to tell them apart more easily. A lot of boss fights have mechanics that require you to switch between targets, and marking your targets can help distinguish between them in the heat of battle. For instance, there’s a fight in the Temple of Sacrifice operation that requires the group to switch between two giant walkers at certain times. The raid leader will often call out which walker the group is supposed to be on so everyone attacks the correct walker. Instead of calling out left or right which is easily confused if you\u2019re facing the wrong direction, or the names of the walkers which are sometimes hard to remember while in the middle of a fight, the raid leader can simply call out “Fire” or “Lightning”. Then everyone on the team can easily confirm their target by either looking at the floating symbol above their target\u2019s head, or at the big symbol on their target’s portrait.<\/p>\n
Groups also sometimes use targets to mark what enemies you shouldn’t attack during operations or flashpoints. For example, a stealther might put an enemy to sleep, by placing a stun on them that breaks on damage. They then might mark their sleeping target so that no one accidently attacks them until your group has dealt with the rest of the enemies.<\/p>\n
The “target” symbol almost always means “kill this first” or “attack this”… but the other symbols have no default meaning, so make sure to check with your group to know what someone is marking for.<\/p>\n
If you need to keep track of your teammates during an operation or flashpoint, you can also place a marker over their head. This can be used to mark a tank so your group knows to follow them or stay away from them depending on the fights, or you can mark an experienced raid member so newer members know they can always stand beside them if they get lost or are unsure where to stand.<\/p>\n
In PvP warzones, marking is equally important. In arenas, teams will often mark the enemies to make it clearer which specific enemy they should attack together as a team first. It’s a lot faster to recognize a giant floating target than trying to identify someone by their name or class.<\/p>\n
In the non-arena warzones, markers are almost always used to mark healers. In almost every group battle it’s best for your team to find the enemy healers and kill them first… so if you happen to find a healer, do your team a favour and mark them. And of course, while fighting, keep your eyes open for the marked healers and attack them first. You can also easily remind your team to \u201cattack target\u201d or \u201cattack purple cog\u201d more easily than you can remind them to attack the name of the healer\u2026 if they have nameplates off, they might not even be able to identify them, but a giant floating purple cog is very easy to spot.<\/p>\n
To mark a target, the easiest way to is to right-click their portrait and choose the marker you want to appear over their heads. You can also keybind the various symbols at the bottom of the Targetting tab in the Key Binding preferences.<\/p>\n
Tab Targetting<\/h2>\n
Switching between targets is also a very important part of both PvE and PvP. In PvE operations, it\u2019s often important to attack or interrupt specific enemies at specific times – sometimes because the enemy you are currently attacking has become shielded and attacking them is a waste of time, other times you just need to interrupt a nearby enemy that\u2019s about to cast a powerful attack.<\/p>\n
The most well-known way to switch between targets is to click on them and select them. The second most well know is to use the \u201ctab\u201d key on your keyboard to cycle through enemies. If there\u2019s only a few enemies in the room, this is the fastest way to switch between them. Hitting tab if you don\u2019t have an enemy selected will select the next one for you – handy if you want to jump right into a nearby fight.<\/p>\n
Apart from just tabbing between enemy targets, you can also set a keybinding for \u201ctarget nearest enemy\u201d and \u201ctarget previous enemy\u201d in your keybindings.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a setting that allows you to \u201cauto target closest enemy\u201d. This setting is great when you are ok attacking anything that moves, like during your class story or simple mobs of enemies. It will automatically target the next enemy nearby once you\u2019ve killed the one you just targetted – so you can use your abilities without having to manually tab between targets as they die. If you\u2019re working on certain operations or want to be very careful with stuns in pvp, you can turn this setting off. That way, you won\u2019t accidentally attack an enemy you didn\u2019t want too, just because your original target died unexpectedly and you then attacked the next one. This can be turned on or off by press ESC > Preferences > Controls, and it\u2019s a checkbox at the top of the controsl settings. There\u2019s also a nice setting in here that allows you to \u201cdeselect target upon clicking on terrain\u201d that allows you to have no target selected by clicking on the ground.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re a healer and want to easily target your friends, there are a few ways to do so. The most obvious is to find them and click on their character. The next easiest way is to click on their character name in the raid frame, where you can also see their health bar and any debuffs they might have. Because of the fast-thinking nature of healing, Healers should take full advantage of keybinding their allied targets. In the targetting keybinds, healers can keybind \u201cTarget Nearest Friend\u201d, \u201cTarget Next Friend\u201d, \u201cTarget Self\u201d, and there are keybinds for targetting your four group members in arenas or flashpoints. There are even keybindings for targetting your friend\u2019s companions!<\/p>\n
A quicker way than targetting yourself is to use the \u201cself target modifier\u201d keybind. Modifiers work a bit differently than normal keybind – you must press them at the same time as your other keybind or ability to make them work. They \u201cmodify\u201d your original keybind rather than being a whole new keybind of their own. The \u201cself target modifier\u201d keybind lets you quickly throw a heal or cleanse to yourself, without having to deselect your current target. Healers can use this to quickly heal themselves while still having the tank they\u2019re healing more often selected.<\/p>\n
Target-of-target<\/h2>\n
All roles, tanks, healers and DPS, have access to a special interface panel that isn\u2019t on by default. It\u2019s called the \u201cTarget of Target\u201d panel, and it helps you see who your target is attacking. So if you\u2019re attacking a boss, the target-of-target will likely show the tank that has the boss\u2019s attention. If you\u2019re by yourself, it might show you or your tanking companion. During a fight, this panel can be extremely useful.<\/p>\n
As a tank, you\u2019ll be able to see who the boss is currently attacking, and it can help you tell when you\u2019ve accidentally lost aggro on the boss. If you\u2019re a DPS, it can help you identify when you\u2019ve accidentally attracted the boss\u2019s attention\u2026 and it might give you enough time to use some of your defensive cooldowns before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n
You can also use it when you\u2019re lost – try targetting a friend who you know is attacking the right enemy, and then you can select that target-of-target panel and you\u2019ll have the correct enemy selected that you can now attack. This is also useful in pvp when you\u2019re following around a more experienced friend – that way you can both attack the same targets together and kill them faster.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s even a keybind to acquire your target\u2019s target.<\/p>\n
Focus Target<\/h2>\n
If there are multiple enemies in the fight, a great tool to use is called \u201cFocus Target\u201d. Focus target allows you to have an enemy\u2019s health and portrait on your screen, even if you have a different enemy selected. Focus target is especially great in operations that have two enemy bosses you need to switch between, or just to keep tabs on. Healers can use the Focus Target to keep track of the boss as they switch between group members they\u2019re healing. In PvP, Focus Target can be used to more easily watch a teammate who\u2019s watching a node.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll first need to enable focus target in your preferences, at the top of the controls settings. Once enabled, the default focus target keybind is alt+4. If you select an enemy or ally and press alt+4, their portrait and healthbar will popup on your interface. This popup will still show if you deselect your focused target.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a keybind modifier to quickly target your focus target. This works great if you have two enemies you need to switch between and both are in your reach – you can have one focus targetted, and the other simply be your current target. Then, anytime you need to attack the focused one instead, hold down the modifier key and any abilities you cast will go on your focused target instead.<\/p>\n
Healers in pvp can make great use of this too. A healer can place their tank buddy as their focus target, and easily switch to them anytime they need some healing love.<\/p>\n
If you really want to make things complicated, there\u2019s even a keybind to \u201cacquire focus target\u2019s target\u201d.<\/p>\n
Double-tap ability<\/h2>\n
Apart form all they keybinds available to help you switch between targets, there\u2019s also a trick to help you aim when you already have a target selected.<\/p>\n
When you\u2019re trying to place down an area-of-effect attack or trying to keep your group alive with an area-of-effect heal, the most well known way to put it down is to activate your ability, then use your mouse to click on the ground where you want to place it.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s also an easier way of placing it if you want it to be centered directly on top of an enemy or friend. If it\u2019s an attack, try targetting an enemy, then double-clicking or double-tapping your ability. This will put it down automatically on top of your targetted enemy, without you having to spend time aiming it with your mouse! You can also do this with healing abilities when you target friends.<\/p>\n
If you managed to set up your focus target, keybound your various targetting keybinds, enabled your target and target interface, and learned how to double-tap, it\u2019s time for you to get out there! The only thing you have left to do before you conquer the galaxy is to practice, practice, practice, and you\u2019ll be looking sharper in both operations and warzones in no time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There\u2019s a lot more to being good in battle than just good gear and abilities – being able to switch between targets quickly can help you be better fighter during…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3806,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-combat-gear-guides"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}