I tend to go for Lts rather than bosses and minions and I usually pick ones towards the back of the group. Don't just put it on the first target you select as the will most likely be the one most people will attack.
You could try a bind saying something like "<X> is my anchor. Please leacve it until last" but I've found it easier to just get used to reapplying your toggles often.
Octavian Vanguard
@ohmsEU and @ohms 2
Badging character: Bimble on the Union server, Badgehunter.com and City Info Tracker.
Not really, happens to me as well, even in experienced teams. A lot of people seem to get the old red mist descend when in battle and they just swipe at the first thing that appears as a target. Unless you have people using AoE's, you could try selecting a minion instead of the boss, it'll probably last just as long as the whole team and its dog concentrates on the boss 
Thinking about it, there could be a possibility that they think you're only debufing the one with the big noxious cloud at it's feet and that's why they concentrate on it - or could just be bad luck 
I have EXACTLY the same prob with my dark defender mate. Rad is SLIGHTLY better than dark when it comes to seeing who's debuffed (the greenish haze around him is easier to pick out rather than a murky grey blob with dark). I also have a key bind set up to say 'X is the darkest night anchor - please leave him til LAST' I had the misfortune to team with someone the other day - there was a mob of about 15 including 3 bosses and a couple of lieuts. He killed my anchor 3 times in that single fight. I politely asked him NOT to kill the Jutal which was my anchor (troll lieut). He replied with "There were 2 of them" to which I replied "Well leave them both til last please" to which he replied "No - you're being ignorant." How was I being ignorant?? I replied with "I'm not being ignorant, just a debuffer - you're killing my anchors" to which he replied "We were doing just fine without you before." So I left them to it.
There's some people who will just go in and be slap-happy. Unfortunately you can't do much about it. I'm slowly perservering with my dark defender (only lv 8 and soloing V E R Y slowly) but am finding it difficult to team - I'm guessing that most of the lowbies that I've teamed with so far are noobs, as I'm sure that a hardened veteran player wouldn't blankly ignore my constant yells of 'NO! Leave him alone - he's the anchor!' whereas a noob probably would.
You've probably just had the same misfortune as me mate - but hang on in there - it's bound to get better (fingers crossed!!)
From the melee's point of view, the most dangerous enemies should go down first - usually this means Bosses, then LTs, then minions... although mezzing enemies like sappers/mushrooms, Rikti Portals and DE Cairns (+resistance) and Quartz (+tohit) rank higher.
Melee toons do not use debuffs- new players will be be unfamiliar with them and ignore them, and many seasoned scrappers still hold the view that a debuffed LT can still kill a squishy; so if it looks like it is going to start causing trouble they take it out and expect the defender to reapply debuffs to a less dangerous target.
At your level Troll LTs and Bosses are very powerful since they can disorient and have very heavy smashing damage attacks, and pre-DOs tanks are still very squishy with poor aggro control.
Generally LTs are a safe bet to anchor your debuffs on, but if there are several, the melees will generally target any in the middle or near the front of the pack. If you want your anchor to last then find a LT near the back of the pack, or failing that a sturdy looking minion. Scrappers generally ignore anchor requests unless they are veteran players (and even then the red mist can settle in), tankers and blasters tend to be a bit better at heeding your requests. 
At higher levels, if there are a few LTs to choose from then it is probably best to stick your debuffs on a target and then *lock it down* with a hold, immob or disorient so that the melees can easily identify your anchor and see that it is not still a potential threat. Troller /rads and dark/ defenders should have no trouble locking their anchor down, Rad/ defenders might have trouble with this if they are /dark or /nrg since they won't get access to any single target holds/immobs until the epic pools, /rad cosmic burst with usual slotting also cannot perma-disorient a target.
Try not to team with idiots (difficult at time I know).
Either LTs at the back or if a boss will take a while, then the boss.
Onve everybody gets SOd up, then by and large debuffs aren't needed - they speed things up dramatically but they aren't vital.
Until you hit an AV every other mission, then they get to be mega-vital again - but at least there's no argument about what gets to be the anchor.
The only other thing you can do is team with a kheldian and always slap the debuffs on the quantums .... they always complain people leave them till last, might as well make it work for you.
Synaesthetix:if your mum wasn't already dead I would go kill her for bringing
you into the world
Anchors only useful for the first couple of seconds anyway. After about arresting half of the enemies theyre to spread out anyway (unless you have a really good tank) for the debuff to affect anything else than the anchor and 'maybe' a minion or two on the outskirts who drop from a single strike from the scrapper anyway..
As long as the anchor lives that long you have nothing to complain about which is why I have at some time corrected a defender with ' the anchor should go down last-est' i.e among the last but not completly LAST.
UNION
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Total Cat: @Officer Cuffz
"When I say interview, I mean engage in combat and defeat..." -Laura Brunetti, on how to deal with Warriors.
You have my sympathy but I'm afraid that it's one of the things that comes with the territory. Certainly at lower levels, I've found people don't understand the concept of a DeBuff, let alone what an anchor is (unless of course they've done a lot of reading or are rolling an alt). When I tried my first Dark Defender there just wasn't any point in using Darkest Night on them as the boss was the target everyone went for first. Having played a scrapper plenty too, I do understand the idea of targetting the highest threat as well so I don't get as annoyed as I used to with others. The only consolation I can give you is that as you progress, players will mature and you generally leave the n00bs behind in the Hollows. I agree though, that a bind to tell others who you're targetting can help. If they ignore it, well that's their stupid fault really, you did your best.
I'm afraid that when it comes to DeBuffing, one of the best pieces of wisdom I was ever given was that "people will not understand your powers". The best you can do is persevere and hope that you get some good teams. 
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk
I have certain ways I pick my anchor with my dark defender, and while they still tend to fall before the whole group is dead I tend to find that the group is small enough that I don't need to bother reapplying by then. I did try calling out for a while, but often that made it worse, as people just saw the name and actually attacked it more, apparently not always understanding what I was saying.
Generally it its an AoE focused team I will stick it on the furthest boss back, as he'll most likely surive the longest, or long enough. If theres alot more melee I'll stick with a lieutenant near the back instead. If people seem to ignore this you can usually get a reaonable idea of the players tactics, or common attack patterns after a while in a group and find a better anchor. Locking them down does help as well, as most people at least, seem to leave lone held targets alone.
Of course theres groups where your anchor always seems to be first to go, especially early on in the game, and I just don't bother applying the debuff in that case, it's there loss really when they die more, or get less xp over time. I left out my anchor debuff until later on anyway, and then respeced back in early at first respec for when I was exemping in the SG.
Asking someone to help you do your job effectively in a team is not ignorant, and any player who would have done so to me would have got a /gignore straight away. I generally try not to take out anchors, but sometimes it does happen. Generally if someone doesn't want the team to be at peak performance then they're not worth teaming with, because they usually won't appreciate the uses of other ATs.
remember, anyone that rushes forward to kill your anchor has to press the 'W' key.
'W' > Anchor
just keep that in mind
Synaesthetix:if your mum wasn't already dead I would go kill her for bringing
you into the world
Sometimes taking out anchors is unavoidable quite frankly. In mele, particularly with dark, although to a lesser degree with rad in a busy tightly packed group, it's virtually impossible to see exactly which one has the debuff on when there's a lot going on.
I also often find people put them on targets that I really need to take out first anyway (bosses, things that do status effects, sappers etc.). When I'm playing my /rad controller I tend to go for luitenents, except in very AOE heavy groups when I may use a boss, and avoid using void stalkers or anything else that's likely to be targetted first.
Ultimately if I have to recast them it doesn't particularly bother me as a general rule - if a team is having problems I may say something but normally if a team is having problems things are quite out of control and there's a lot of stuff out of the debuffs anyway. The only thing that genuinely annoys me with my rad is if someone with knockback appears to be seeing how far they can bounce one accross a busy room. 
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The only thing that genuinely annoys me with my rad is if someone with knockback appears to be seeing how far they can bounce one accross a busy room.
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As an Ill/Rad controller, the *very* first time I summoned my phantasm, only to have him hit the anchor with a knockback power scattering the mobs around him and killing him was *very* special to me.
Synaesthetix:if your mum wasn't already dead I would go kill her for bringing
you into the world
Firstly -
Debuffs only useful for the first few seconds? If thats the case you are playing on far too low a difficulty my friend. And perhaps I should untoggle those debuffs on that AV that is pounding you to the ground... Lets see if the tank likes that heh?
A couple of suggestions...
Firtly, a bind is helpful
Second, discuss with the team who you would like to anchor.
There are basically three choices...
Minions:
Advangtages: Means you can kill the boss (biggest threat first)
Disadvantages: Highly likely to get dropped anyway because so fragile. More likely to run. If mobs scatters, boss becomes free of debuff.
IMHO: Bad choice unless you have a team of boss killing scrappers. Which probably means you havent got a very good team anyway . Under no circumstances use this if you have lots of AoE flying around, or if any powers are being used that cause sctter (caltrops, rains, etc. )
Leiutenants:
Advantages: Allows Boss to get killed first. Allows some discrimination about who has been anchored.
Disadvantages: As above, but not so significant
IMHO: Good middle ground. Often the best choice in pick up groups or relatively mediocre teams.
Option 3: Bosses
Advantages: The biggest threat is always debuffed. That means he isnt a big threat. Pretty much always able to identify and avod the anchor. Highly unlikely to run. Even if attacked, likely to be last one standing.
Disadvantages: Some argue that bosses need to go down first (this is a bad argument IMO: a debuffed boss is hardly any threat to a decent team). Possibly slightly slows you down by the need to wipe out minions first (not my experience but hey).
IMHO: The best choice, particularly for good teams. Not good if you have a load of scrappers on the team (partially because they are so good at taking down bosses, partially because they tend not to think).
In a tight team with a tank and debuffer who know what to do, you can simply crank difficulty up to invincible and safely fight +3's by clustering them all round an anchored boss and letting rip with AoE's.
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far too low a difficulty
[/ QUOTE ]There is no such thing
I generally debuff the Lieut at the back too. By the time he does drop there's usually so few enemies left that the lack of debuff doesn't matter for the end of the fight.
Bosses get picked on too much (aww) to be relying on. And minions just get mowed down too quickly to bother with.
But your anchor will die a bit, thats the weakness of sets like Rad, toggles dropping via death or you getting mezzed. Its even worse with my Fire/Rad controller. Those little Munkies are like 3 psycho scrappers and theres no telling em.
Thanks for the advice guys played a bit more now and it seems to depend on what sort of team i get in. The good ones work with me and the bad ones only think i'm there to give them AM and spam in my heal. But over all i'm really enjoying the Defender AT. I have started to vary my tactic dependent on how the team is playing and not having to put my debuffs back on as often Thanks again guys
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Those little Munkies are like 3 psycho scrappers and theres no telling em.
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Just wait till Monkey Mayhem gsts her pets, there'll be four little psycho scrappers in there
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Those little Munkies are like 3 psycho scrappers and theres no telling em.
[/ QUOTE ]
Just wait till Monkey Mayhem gsts her pets, there'll be four little psycho scrappers in there
[/ QUOTE ]
Why do you think I switched to Trick Arrow
"Kill what you want, I don't care. They're all debuffed, alive or dead"
I'd say, from experience of being on both sides of this that Snow Storm is probably the worst for visibility of anchor. Then again Snow Storm distroys any sort of visibility anyway. I've pretty much given up on trying to stop people killing my anchors and tend to just put it on the biggest thing there, usually by the time it goes down there will only be a couple of scattered mobs left around to clean up anyway
As to why Scrappers always kill anchors, well as much as we (well some of us) try not to, sometimes when you're in the middle of a large mob it's acutally quite difficult to pay attention to exactly what you're hitting, especially once you've dealt with the boss and have got onto the random mobs. Half the time you only realise you've taken down the anchor when the debuff graphic drops.
Ok here goes been playing COX for a while now but never played a defender. So i just rolled a Rad/Psi and i'm really enjoying it
The only problem i seem to be having is people keep killing who ever i stick my Rad de-buffs on almost as soon i cast them 
i have tried tell people to leave them till last and calling out which bad guy i'm about to de-buff to no avail the team seems to be drawn to them 
I don't want to get hostile with my team mates its only a game after all but this is really annoying has anyone got any advice on how i can stop this happening ?