Group/Raid icons were added recently so that a group/raid leader can mark targets with easily visible icons that everyone can see. These are a great boon for coordination, but it's a bit clumsy to rightclick the target's icon, select Raid Icon> and then pick the icon you want to mark it with.
Enter Macros!
Create a macro with the following text and put it on an action bar for easy use.
/script SetRaidTarget("target",8)
In this case, the 8 is the SKULL icon.
The number is a value from 0 to 8, as follows:
0 = no icon
1 = Yellow 4-point Star
2 = Orange Circle
3 = Purple Diamond
4 = Green Triangle
5 = White Crescent Moon
6 = Blue Square
7 = Red "X" Cross
8 = White Skull
Lets say a raid designates a Main Tank (this is the person who's target nearly everyone should be attacking) by putting the Orange Circle on the player. A macro for easily assisting this person without having to change your macro with every raid would be the following:
/script for i=1,GetNumRaidMembers() do if GetRaidTargetIndex("raid"..i.."target") == 2 then AssistUnit("raid"..i) return end end
(the above is all on one line, it's shown here wrapped so you can read it)
This macro may be slower than just "/script AssistByName("Johnny")", but at least you never have to change it. :)
I like it, thanks!