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I'd say yes, if only out of courtesy. Not everyone you run with is going to be accustomed to boss-to-boss pulling. They should at least get a fair warning first. Usually though I'll often say at the very start of a run that I'm still fairly new to healing (mostly leves and FATEs), which is a preemptive way of saying "Go nuts, at your own risk". Some heed it, others don't.
As a healer, I always assume a tank is going to do large pulls. It's not your fault you can't handle it yet though. You will get to a point where you're confident enough in your healing skills that warning isn't needed and you'll also be annoyed when the tank doesn't do large pulls hahaha.
Should you ask? No.
Big pulls are normal and expected, so I tend to do them, unless some one says something, or if I feel that the party can't handle it. Like some one new to an instance, if you're not comfortable with it, let them know; it's just like when I'm healing, I let people know if I'm a bit rusty or if they can pull more if they please. If it doesn't work, there could be various factors to it failing, so it isn't always automatically the healer or the tank.
Now, as a tank, I can't always judge the quality of players by gear, so the first pull will set the pace of the instance. If I do have a pet peeve with large pulls, it's usually not with healers, but with DPS (I especially eye other monks as I main one, and most that I run into don't realize their full potential for AoE). It's a minor annoyance seeing people that are capable of AoEing not doing an AoE rotation, but it's especially annoying when DPS and/or healers ask for large pulls and pull abysmal numbers in their respective role, making the pull last longer than it should.
Lately, I've been back to queueing as a monk with my BF as a BLM, and I have had more than one tank scale their pulls back when they see me. We just tell them to pull big, and they're often surprised to see that we wreck mobs without breaking a sweat. While I want to say that it shouldn't be a surprise that a monk can pull monstrous AoE numbers, the quality of DF is... well... lacking more often than not.
As a tank player, depending on the dungeon, my experience with said dungeon and gear, I'll ask if the healer doesn't mind bigger pulls. I'll only ask after seeing how the party does for the first few initial pulls, how the healer is holding up, whether or not he/she is DPS'ing...
Sometimes I won't ask if it's evident that stuff can be steamrolled and the party you know, and works as a team.
Either way, I play relatively safe at first because wipes will make a run take longer.
It is sort of Darwinian, what happens when a tank does a big pull that the healer cannot sustain healing for, people die, tank learns he should have either asked first or should not do them and the party adapts the hard way, via trial and error. The above is the rough and negative way to go about it with likely more chances for conflict and frustration in what is likely a duty roulette qued run. I advise an easier, less chance for conflict method: At the beginning of the run simply ask the tank if he/she will do big pulls.
Also for tanks, I gather that the point of the big pulls is to speed things up but if it will result in deaths because healer did not know, it will be counter productive to the goal of haste so it might help to let people know at the beginning of the run that you are doing big pulls. Normally I see the tanks notifying us of this so I figured it was the norm to do so.
Good luck <3
The thing about big pulls is... It's not just the healer who can fail it. You maybe new but who knew if that tank of yours was geared/popping cool downs or the dps was doing their job. Don't be too hard on yourself.
Whm as it gets geared goes on auto pilot though. There's a few levels/gear points where healing can be tough (the vault) for newer healers but on the flip side you'll find even big pulls are boringly easy for you.
Realistically whm is boringly simple to pull off. Just the basic regen and cure spam will handle any and all big pulls. If you can't handle that, it's the gear or tank. Yeah there are a few things you could do to help (divine seal, presence) but I've never done a non-raid where it saved someone. Just don't forget shroud of saints when you get it for mp
tbh I never ask cause I just assume most people want a fast run, but if someone in the party is asking for less pulls,or i see the healer is struggling, or the party composition isn't optimal for big pulls then I won't do it.
Well for me it depends on the DPSes' composition. If it has one SMN or one BLM, it's a big pull run, if they are DRG, MNK, BRD, MCH, etc which are not aoe focused classes, I just pull one pack at a time. So far no one's complaining and I keep getting commendations at least one in one dungeon run.
No, because even a monkey should be able to spam Cure/Cure II. A healer shouldn't be able to get to the level where big pulls are relevant and not know how to heal.