Strategy: Kill groups, or targets?

Having recently switched from healer (Scholar) to DPS (Dragoon), I was sat down theory-crafting, assessing the Dragoons skills and rotations and generally seeking to improve my game; and a few things stuck out to me.

According to my calculations, when faced by 2 to 3 targets (ie. typical trash pull) the optimum DPS strategy was in fact to focus on spreading Chaos Thrust/Phlebotomise across the entire group, rather than burning down a single target fast as possible. On closer examination the strategy seems to be true for all DPS classes, DoT effects provide superior value over time (the long GCD places emphasis on making each skill activation count), with the limitation you can only place one copy of each DoT on each target so it behooves you to DoT multiple targets instead of focusing.

However, in the field, people mark targets and if you attack a target out of sequence (even when you ensure you don't pull threat from the tank and arn't interrupting sleep), people get ratty and question whether you're a "noob". This is further compounded by the perception that DPS is going slower, since the time from engagement to first kill tends to be longer (since the damage is being distributed relatively evenly) even though the time from engagement, to clearing the entire group is around ~20-30% shorter.

Is it unreasonable to explain this to a party an expect them embrace it, or have I got my maths wrong and it's better to burn down 1 target at a time even when there is no pressure to adopt that strategy (ie. healer and tank is not unduly pressured, sufficient threat is being generated to do so). While "burn down 1 at a time" is certainly a safer strategy, a dead enemy won't pressure the tank or healer, is seems like people have pre-conceptions of "how to DPS" and have never really sat back and looked at whether that was the optimum approach/dared question the common wisdom.


(To clarify I'm not saying spreading DPS out is a good idea in every situation. There are certainly times you'll want to sleep mobs, or focus down specific targets; just, as a general rule of thumb when dealing with trash )

It's not a coincidence that most people do WP speedruns (where you pull 4-5 packs at a time and AE them down).

outside of AoE pulls and speed running, multi DoTs typically mean higher DPS, but doing so just means spread aggro (would be harder for some tanks, especially pug tanks) to hold aggro on all targets, but the main drawback stems from having most mobs up throughout the duration of the fight. If say you pulled 3 mobs, focus firing 1 down means mid-way through the fight, the tank/healer only needs to handle 2 mobs and then eventually, only 1 mob. Typically, most healers (who knows what they are doing) would start DPSing when they see they do not have to heal as often. This way, the overall group DPS is superior than that of "spreading DoTs slowly".

The exceptions to this are classes like summoner, where they have ALOT of DoTs and they can easily be spread or applied, and their single target "filler" abilities are quite crappy.

Ah, true. My perspective on the DPS role healers play in trash pulls is a bit skewed because as a SCH I can basically sit in cleric stance 90% of the time and have my pet handle most the work (really not an over-statement), while using bane to spread the DoTs to the entire group swiftly. But when working with a WHM, then they only have luxury of really joining the DPS in earnest once you thin the herd which probably outweighs the DPS difference

What I usually do in groups is apply the Chaos thrust combo to the tanks target then use the Heavy Thrust>> Ring of thorns combo until my TP gets low. I'm not a fan of spreading dots across mobs because it might take threat from the tank and because the faster one monster dies, the faster the healer/tank can get some relief.

I really don't know if one way is faster than the other. I'm not really concerned about my personal DPS going up if AOE'ing will slow down the pace in which things die.

I'm only looking at the perspective of a BLM and usually playing with a person that focuses single target. By the time the first mob is down, if I'm AOE'ing then the other 2+ mobs will typically be at close to half of their life left. I honestly can't say whether or not the fight would have progressed faster had I just focused on one target at a time since my burst damage as a BLM is pretty high.

Maybe I should run a stopwatch between two of those 3 pack gargoyle pulls in AK and see the difference between single target and AOE damage.

I just know from a BLM point of view, my danger of taking threat is pretty high regardless if I don't have Quelling Strikes ready. A mob will usually be dead before it turns its attention to me with a relic tank, but tanks with lower ilvl gear struggle to keep up with my damage. For AOE, tanks have to keep up with Flash so that things don't peel off of them. This is mitigated a bit by me using Quelling Strikes and I tend not to AOE if it's not up as after a few Fire 2 casts things are going to be running after me.

It really depends on what the party is doing. If targets are being slept then you need to switch to a single-target rotation. If the other DPS is focusing then you need to focus as well. If the tank can't hold aggro well and you find that doing AOE is peeling mobs away from the tank then you need single target.

Conversely, if the other DPS is doing AOE's, and the tank is doing a good job of building threat, then you should be doing AOE's as well. Both strategies are valid and the performance of one or the other strategy depends on party makeup.