Attack targeting through the tank?

I rarely target through any teammate. I will occasionally target through a teammate who's taking heavy damage if I can't easily see what's attacking him on the grounds that he probably can but most of the time I prefer precise targeting.

I never target through the tank.

I AM THE TANK!

Actually, I tend to target my teammates if they start dropping into yellow health. I'll hit taunt under the assumption that they are targeting whatever is hitting them hardest, but I also hit follow so I can quickly find/reach them and grab all the aggro from around him/her.

Another aspect I take into account of is that if I'm playing a ranged fighter and happen to find myself targeting the same foe (via a Tab cycling to next) that another team mate, in particular a meleer, is already fighting, I will switch off to another foe. This assumes, of course, that the team mate's health is ok. The reason for this is that I've noticed quite a few melee attacks are really slow to animate compared to blast attacks. Many times, I'll get the kill shot before my team mate's attack finishes animating. I don't really know how my team mates feel about his, but if it was me, I might get irked after a while if every guy I fight gets sniped out of my hands. Especially if the melee set is light on AOE and I have to focus on individual targets. Even as a tank, I'd like to have some "kills" of my own.

For me it really depends on the type of character I'm playing. So far, the three I enjoy and have played enough to test are tanks, scrappers and defenders (and only an emp defender). I never target through another character with a tank or a scrapper, on the other hand, with an emp defender I am always targeting another and almost never target an enemy. I have a macro set up so that I can quickly click a button to target each teammate. Also, the only time I attack anything is when it appears I don't need to heal someone or use some other helpful power and then I attack through whatever teammate I happen to be targeting. Generally I'm kept fairly busy and don't get to do much attacking.

I never target through other players, mostly because of how psychotic my playstyle is. I tend to switch to a new target the instant my current one dies, but not everyone is that swift, and on the occasions I've tried targeting through others there have been times where the other player will not find a new target for several moments, so that practice went kaput. Of course I've accidentally shot the next group over a few times because of this, but that usually only results in MY defeat

I never purposefully target through anybody for the multiple reasons mentioned on the thread.

From a tank perspective in team setting, I rarely stay on one target. I am taunting a far group, in attack animation and then taunting again. Rinse and repeat.

Its a small point often missed on even good leaders on master runs. Calling out a target and not assisting off the tank is very prudent. Its very easy to lose out on a master run LGTF when the tank scrolls to Hami and someone fires off a shot at Hami and gains aggro.

I find the safer mode of not grabbing agro on a toon that can't handle it is to just not hit something that has full health. If I'm not controlling my targeting, then it's to easy to hit something I shouldn't.