How to explain spreading the DoTs vs aggro management to new players

While I'm maining a tank I rolled up a second character to be more caster focused as an ARC/SMN but will do all caster Job eventually.

During a Copperbell mines run I had the tank ask me to stop casting all my DoTs on everything in a pull and focus on the same target the other DPS was. I tried to explain to him that the DoT's soften everything up to make it faster to clear through the group as after I'd DoT everything I'd burn the focused target down and then reapply to the others and burn the next, etc. He tried to counter with the hate risk, but I responded that I hadn't pulled hate off him yet as his aoe enmity usage plus him changing targets through the mobs means my meager DoTs aren't even a blip on the hate radar. We finished the run with a bit more grumbling from the tank, but no deaths occurred.

Did I handle it right? What might be a better way to explain the use of DoTs during group pulls both to tanks who might not have dealt with it before or even to players trying ARC out and haven't really played a game/character focused on DoT effects before?

You did right and even explained to him.

This tank sucks.

If he can't keep aggro from SMN dots, there are serious issues with his tanking capabilities.

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Originally Posted by aerolol

You did right and even explained to him.

This tank sucks.

If he can't keep aggro from SMN dots, there are serious issues with his tanking capabilities.

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He was holding agro fine, but was:

A. worried he could lose it, because I had hate from everything
B. Thought I was slowing down the group kill speed by not focusing with our other dps

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Originally Posted by SwordswornFox

He was holding agro fine, but was:

A. worried he could lose it, because I had hate from everything
B. Thought I was slowing down the group kill speed by not focusing with our other dps

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You were doing the right thing, yet the player was apparently unaware of this.
In such cases I usually suggest them to look it up on the net after the run if they don't want to believe me on my word, in the hopes they will realize their mistake and others won't need to explain it anymore.

dots produce less agro than heals, unless you are summoner and spread all your odts at the start.

My advice would be to point out that they need AOE threat generation to prevent the healer being targeted by enemies anyways, and DoTs don't require that much more flash/overpower spam. And to illustrate why it's incorrect that focus-firing makes clearing faster, you can point out that the DoTs are stronger than Ruin spam, so you want to keep them running on multiple mobs at once if possible.

But for a new player tank, it's going to be hard to understand that second point if they haven't had the chance to see the tooltips for themselves.

That's the challenge of new tanks. Strange it's harder to play on low levels than high levels. In low levels, it's so hard to hold agro, but it will be better when you have high enmity attacks on higher levels.

PLDs are severely lacking in AOE enmity generation at low level. If the tank was a PLD I can see why they might request this since as a SMN I often manage to peel mobs off the tank through use of Bane and other AOEs.

Now having said that, since you weren't pulling anything off of the tank there should be no problem. It might have been making the tank work a bit harder but groups of mobs would be dying faster as a result. SMNs are actually much more efficient when distributing their damage evenly across a group, so unless a mob needs to be burned down quickly feel free to spread your damage as you did.

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Originally Posted by aerolol

You did right and even explained to him.

This tank sucks.

If he can't keep aggro from SMN dots, there are serious issues with his tanking capabilities.

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This. He's going to be in for a real shock when Bane comes along lol. FYI though, if you do get hate make sure you are run to the tank so mobs just don't go all over the place.

Bane and painflare incoming.

But seriously he should be using his AOE threat abilities, I know I did/do a lot when I play tank.

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Originally Posted by AriaEnia

That's the challenge of new tanks. Strange it's harder to play on low levels than high levels. In low levels, it's so hard to hold agro, but it will be better when you have high enmity attacks on higher levels.

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In a PLD's case, Shield Oath is 40 years away, and Flash kinda sucks at low level when you're up against synced overgeared players, requiring you to spam Flash 4-5 times. Not strange at all. And speaking for experience(well also speaking for myself and only played GLA) it'll start feeling like no aggro skills work at all.

A tank who sees a caster in PT and expects them to not DoT everything or bane or AoE in general is a poor tank, and they are many... They need to start spamming their AoE enemity and keep spamming it if needs be because THEY ARE TANKS, their dps is laughable compared to what a caster does on a pull, and casters are here to make pulls die faster. So yeah as you progress and get bane and other AoEs, if you are unsure, do use quelling strikes if you have it (although having to use it on SMN would be really really sad...doesn't even need to be on your action bar). But with a good tank you go all out from the start, raging strikes, painflare, tri disaster, bane, fully buffed enkindle etc. A good tank will have no issue keeping hate from that.