Guide to Guardianing?

[Thoral]

<p>Is there a good guide out there somewhere that gives good advice for Guardians?  I find myself getting caught in the pattern of just taunting and using my CA's, and ignoring some of my other abilities like Tower of Stone.  I'd like to see some strats on how to use my special abilities.</p><p>Thanks</p>

[Wilin]

Your best bet is to latch onto a good guardian in voice chat that is willing to answer questions and explain the ins-and-outs. There is no one way to approach every situation and you have to recognize the scenario presented to you and execute based on that.

[Ferunnia]

Here's what I believe you're looking for. This is a <a href="http://www.eq2flames.com/guardians/9537-guardian-guide.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">guide</a> Halbarad wrote a while back, so some of the info is a bit dated, but still a wealth of info there for the new tank.

[Svann]

Link isnt working for me.  Is it down or is it me?

[Ferunnia]

Try this one, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://eq2flames.com/showthread.php?t=9537" target="_blank">here</a>.Edit: tried this one and it works. I was in a hurry on the other one, it's prolly something I did wrong while creating the link.

[Thoral]

<p>In Halbarad's guide, he mentions cycling through the encounter every 10 seconds or so.  I've found that using the tab key only cycles through one or two mobs without getting the rest, and that using the mouse to pick out a target is difficult at best.  How do all of you cycle through engaged targets?</p>

[Wilin]

Hitting Tab will only cycle through targets that are visible on your screen and are part of the same encounter. So if you're surrounded by multiple mobs, you have to pan the camera out so you can see all of them on your screen in order to tab through them. For mobs in separate encounters, you have to click over to the other encounter and then you can tab through that encounter. Usually only 1 click is needed though because you'll click over to the second encounter, do your thing, and then hit your assist key to get back to the original encounter.

[Thoral]

Thanks Wilin, you have no idea how long I've been looking for that exact information.  I knew that it would only target enemies visible on my screen, but I didn't know that it would stick to the encounter.  I've had problems before that when the last enemy of an encounter dies and I reflexively hit tab, I target something that I didn't mean for the group/raid to attack, which made me think that tab wasn't limited to the encounter.  Thanks a TON for clearing this up.

[Freydinessa]

lol, i'm sure we've experienced the [tab] pressing and getting the mob far away, and our mage in the group nuking it. lol. Fun times, but it's definitely a good way to learn. This use to annoy me no end until i made a targeting macro for myself: /target_Nearest_NPC /autoattack 1 Basically, as it states, when i press it Mirtai targets the nearest NPC to her, and starts to attack. As usual it's selected from those only on your screen. If i'm fighting a mob, i'll tab through them if with a warlock or the like (multi-target specialists) focus on them one at a time to bring down. then it's a matter of simple pressing the macro and it selects the nearest enemy to Mirtai and away we go again. I never mouse click, anymore as a result. If there's an 'add' on my healer i'll simply move over next to the 'add', press my macro, pull it away, then move back to who i was focusing on before if need be. It means you move around a lot more in battle but i believe that is a good thing too, as you're giving not just a name for the other members in the group to target, but also a visual indication of where that enemy is in the world. Try this out and see how it goes, it will probably take about a week to get used to, but now, targeting enemies i don't want is a thing of the past.

[Rahatmattata]

<cite>Mirtai@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>lol, i'm sure we've experienced the [tab] pressing and getting the mob far away, and our mage in the group nuking it. lol. Fun times, but it's definitely a good way to learn. This use to annoy me no end until i made a targeting macro for myself: /target_Nearest_NPC /autoattack 1 Basically, as it states, when i press it Mirtai targets the nearest NPC to her, and starts to attack. As usual it's selected from those only on your screen. If i'm fighting a mob, i'll tab through them if with a warlock or the like (multi-target specialists) focus on them one at a time to bring down. then it's a matter of simple pressing the macro and it selects the nearest enemy to Mirtai and away we go again. I never mouse click, anymore as a result. If there's an 'add' on my healer i'll simply move over next to the 'add', press my macro, pull it away, then move back to who i was focusing on before if need be. It means you move around a lot more in battle but i believe that is a good thing too, as you're giving not just a name for the other members in the group to target, but also a visual indication of where that enemy is in the world. Try this out and see how it goes, it will probably take about a week to get used to, but now, targeting enemies i don't want is a thing of the past. </blockquote>Nice tip... tab targetting has plauged me to no end.Another thing I've found very useful is the target previous NPC command. I don't think it's bound to any keys by default, so I had to assign it myself. I assigned it to the x button because I play with left hand on wasd and right hand on mouse usually. This has been great for targeting an add to get aggro, then I just tap x and I'm back on my previous target.Another command I bound to q is the assist command in control options. It's different than an /assist macro... you assist your target. It's basically like doing /assist rather than /assist Name. I use this all the time for many different situations. I also have z bound to /assist Name macro on a hotbar.It can be helpful to bind other various frequent used abilities and oh [Removed for Content] abilities to easy to hit keys... like tower of stone on the side mouse button if you have a 5 button mouse etc... you can still click it on your hotbar if you want, or just click a key you have it bound to. Customizing stuff like this can really streamline your tanking.

[Ferunnia]

I think control tab or shift tab cycles through encounters, but don't quote me on that one. Easiest thing would be to go to controls in your option menu and find out if that can be hot keyed.Also, assist is by default bound to the letter 'V' so, unless you've changed it, that's the normal assist hotkey.

[Leshrac Gol]

<p>Even something as simple as turning the mob can help ya....any mob not looking at you will need a little attention. plus any scouts in the group will love ya =)</p>

[Wilin]

<cite>Thoral wrote:</cite><blockquote>Thanks Wilin, you have no idea how long I've been looking for that exact information.  I knew that it would only target enemies visible on my screen, but I didn't know that it would stick to the encounter.  I've had problems before that when the last enemy of an encounter dies and I reflexively hit tab, I target something that I didn't mean for the group/raid to attack, which made me think that tab wasn't limited to the encounter.  Thanks a TON for clearing this up.</blockquote>When you're target window is empty, TAB is not locked to an encounter. So, even in the middle of an encounter,  pressing TAB after the mob dies but before another mob attacks you, you can still end up TABing to the wrong mob.

[thial]

Something else I found useful was in the options there is an option to bind target nearest npc to auto attack.I set auto attack to one of the extra buttons on my mouse so when a mob dies I hit that button and I target the closest  mob and auto attack at the same time helps to  select your next target allot faster. I also have target previous and target next right next to each other I set  them to the  < and > keys

[Path]

<cite>Wilin wrote:</cite><blockquote>Your best bet is to latch onto a good guardian in voice chat that is willing to answer questions and explain the ins-and-outs. There is no one way to approach every situation and you have to recognize the scenario presented to you and execute based on that.</blockquote><3 to Munson aka Khingpin for doing that with me.  Still not the BEST Guardian, but each day I learn different strats for different situations as well as different or better ways to deal with other things