Well, as I understand it (and haven't been yelled at for working it
this way), the MA is the secondary tank and/or the person designated
to tank a second mob that is either unmezzable or no other way to
control it. I may have jobs mixed up, but the way it works (for me,
at least) is that you set up a second hotkey with the MA's name so
there's no fumbling around or extra time taken up by having to manually
type /assist <x>. Which is good if their name is something like
Aeidksoeisns. :P

Tracey

The MA, who often is the MT, is the person that everyone should assist to
get their target.  There are times when you need someone who chooses the
target for the raid, rather than just blindly assisting the MT.

You got it pretty much.

The MA or Main Assist is the person that everybody else in the group
aside from the MA himself and the puller target to assist, such that
everybody focuses on the same target.

Many groups, especially at the lower end don't have a separate MA, the
puller in effect takes both jobs.

As things get more difficult, it sometimes makes sense to have a puller
independent of the person that will decide which mob to beat on first.
Generally that person is the MT (Main Tank) but doesn't have to be.
Often it will be the leader of the group or a member experienced in the
area, that can quickly spot mobs in a pull that must be killed first
(like healers or casters in general).

<mr_castalot@yahoo.com> wrote:

MT tanks.  If there are additional mobs that need to be killed *while* a
main mob is being tanked, an MA will be the one who calls assists.  Doesn't
necessarily involve any tanking.  My guild often uses a wizard as MA on one
particular encounter for instance.

I'll give you a couple hints from a longtime raid leader and raid puller:

A) Do it faster.  Trust me.  Only applies to a tanking MA.  I'm not saying
call it instantly, I'm saying acquire aggro instantly and call it when
you're ready.  When you think you have this accomplished, move on to hint B.

B) Do it faster.  Trust me.

C) Be spatially aware.  Casters need line of sight to cast, so move out of
line of sight to stop a chain caster's nuking and get it to come on into
camp.  As well, you need line of sight to acquire aggro, so make sure you've
got room in front of camp or you're gonna be swimming through your own raid
force to get to a mob.

D) Be aware of game mechanics.  Kill the gater first.  When a gater has
friends around, he won't gate.  If he's alone, he's gonna try...

A good MA can do much to make sure a raid goes smoothly.  A bad MA can
guarantee failure.  Slackers don't make good MA's.

MA is in most cases the MT as he is out frount of the rest of the group
to get first strike on mob. He is also closer to the puller to target
the mob before rest of force be it group or raid, in most cases it is
raid

Ok, I think I got it.  When I said new I meant new, dinged 16 last
night.  So no raids in his near future.

I've been a monk/necro/cleric until now (65-67 now) and never been a
raider.  Oh I've assisted on the random necro epic 2.0 or HoH flagging
but that's about it (cleric epic too).
In my life as such I've never really known about an MA nor apparently
needed to.  I've been re-invited to many a group and several raids
without such knowledge so I must be doing something right...

Thanks for the edumucation.

~F

It just gets confusing because in most groups the MA is the MT, so
people get lazy and use them interchangeably.  Another confusing fact
is that people tend to treat the puller, not the MA, as the main
assist.  This can lead to some problems.  (Puller doesn't always have
the MA's target as his own target.)

Others in this thread have answered the question, but I'll just add
an example from a low-level encounter (~level 20).

In the new Qeynos mission ("Sleeping on the Job"), the final boss
fight has you up against a beefed-up Fippy Darkpaw.  As his hits
drop, he summons pairs of adds.  One way to handle this fight is
for the MT to stay on Fippy while all the other DPS gets directed
at one add, then the other.  Then everyone goes back to Fippy
until the next adds arrive.

To do this, you want a separate MA.  When the adds show up, the MA
targets one, gets aggro, and calls for the group to assist.  Rinse
and repeat.

    -- Don.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-- See the a.g.e/EQ1 FAQ at http://www.iCynic.com/~don/EQ/age.faq.htm
--
-- Sukrasisx, Monk 56 on E. Marr       Note: If you reply by mail,
-- Terrwini, Druid 52 on E. Marr       I'll get to it sooner if you
-- Wizbeau, Wizard 36 on E. Marr       remove the "hyphen n s"
-- Teviron, Knight 21 on E. Marr

MA = Main Assist.  The main guy for you to assist to get the correct target.
MT = Main Tank.  The guy who the mob will (or should), always have aggro on,
and will be focused on for heals.

They can overlap but are not the same roles.