opinions on dps split?

OK so i recently got into a debate with a couple of my friends about dps splitting. honestly in my opinion i don't really see the issue with it. I currently have a level 60 paladin and a lvl 54 warrior. my two friends tried to convince me that dps splitting takes longer than focused attacks but honestly i have to disagree.

Below is my reasoning (Too long to have all on one post)

http://imgur.com/ZHdaUhc

In all my time as a tank i have never once had a problem with dps splitting. the only times i can see dps splitting doing more harm than good is if the tank lost aggro on the adds or if the healer couldn't heal through the fight. Is there anything im overlooking and what is everyone's opinion on dps splitting?

Honestly, if the DPS is the same from each player in both scenarios, then there is no difference whether you split them or not. The over all party DPS is the same, and thus the total time to kill both mobs is the same. There is no benefit one way or the other in terms of raw speed from damage, but only if the damage output from each player is exactly the same in both situations.....

Where there IS benefit however, is that in the single mob situation the tank is likely to have an easier time maintaining aggro between the two, and thus have more time to DPS without worrying about aggro. As such, there IS a benefit to focusing on one mob, (barring AoE attacks obviously), because in theory the tank will be putting out more damage in the focus situation than they will be in the split situation. It's not a matter of whether you can or can't hold aggro across all the mobs, it's a matter of it being easier, (if even only slightly easier), for you to hold aggro on the focus mob, and as such have more time to work in dps skills, which means your damage, and thus the over all damage being done, will be higher than in the split situation......

Again though, if your party is putting out the exact same over all DPS when splitting, then you are correct. What I'm basically saying though is that it's likely that the tank will be outputting more DPS in the focus situation, and thus the over all party DPS increases slightly. More than likely it would never be enough to tell without a parser, of course, but in terms of raw numbers your friends are correct, and there's more benefit to focus than to split since at best by splitting you are achieving the same time to kill the mobs....

That's also of course without counting variations to DPS based on individual skills and how they interact with the targets, such as DoTs, ect.....

It's really not that complicated, if you're doing more DPS, things are going to go faster overall. In the case of AoEing ('dps splitting' as you put it), you achieve this by cleaving multiple mobs at the same time with applicable skills.

If you're doing 100 DPS to 1 mob, versus 33.3 DPS each to 3 mobs, yeah it's going to take the same time either way.
If you're doing 100 DPS to 1 mob, versus cleaving 3 mobs with a 100 DPS ability so you do 300 DPS, the latter is going to go 3 times faster.

Some things to consider:
2 dps on 1 mob means that 1 mob dies faster lowering incoming damage on the tank at once meaning healer can dps the second mob more as incoming damage is lower after first mob is dead.

Dps have complimentary skills eg DRG increases a BRD or MCH dmg by 10%, nin increases all dps by 10%, you are not getting these benefits if you are attacking a seperate mob.

If everyone is focusing 1 mob the tank only has to hold hate on that 1 mob, meaning less AoE enmity generation, meaning higher single target dps, significant particularly as a PLD.

using AoE skills (such as flare, flaming arrow and shadowflare) and multi-dotting (BRD for RoD/bloodletter procs) is less effective if multiple mobs die sooner than if they stay alive for the full duration while you all focus one target at a time.

If by "dps splitting" we mean people hitting single target skills on different mobs your friends are correct on it being slower.
But if by "dps splitting" we mean using AoE skills on groups of monsters, the your friends are wrong.


If you're gonna use single target on different mobs, you don't get the benefits of trick attack for every player.

As a tank you have to maintain aggro on both mobs equally, which means you can't use dps stance that easily, if at all.

But if everyone focuses single target skills on same target. Everyone gets benefits of trick attacks and such skills. And as a tank, after establishing aggro in tank stance, it should be piece of cake to maintain the aggro in dps stance, which means you as a tank are dealing more dmg.

But generally using AoE skills is always faster with 3+ mob pulls, (excluding nin+nin dps set up I guess)

The main thing to consider is that, with multiple targets, there's not a single job in this game which does optimal damage by focusing one mob down until it dies. Absolutely none. Even with 2 mobs in front of you, every single job gets a benefit from applying its damage over time abilities to both mobs and maintaining them.

At every level post-50, if your DPS are split and each 100% soloing a different add, they're not good DPS in the first place, so discussing that strategy isn't really worthwhile. At 50, every class has sufficient DPS potential - a few jobs improve this post-50, sure, but the core of your AoE rotation is present from 50 onward for every job besides AST.

I'm still a noob player and only recently got a job to 50. To me, dps splitting seems situational or circumstantial but how people seem to judge it, vets say it's 100% bad. In my head, i say judge it on DoT rounds. If splitting the damage results in me refreshing DoTs on mobs less often, it's a plus. If not, its a minus or even at best. But then I'm taking AoEs into account but brushing healer/tank dps aside (mainly because i haven't played either yet). But DoT refreshing is a hard time measure and overkill is it's enemy. Dps splitting could be beneficial or harmful but i guess the consensus on the matter is absolute on this one.

There is a time and place to split dps but it is situational. In A2S me and our monk pick one soldier each to burst down while they are stunned while the BLM keeps AOEing and the DRG is the driver. And even then we usually dot eachothers targets up. Outside of such situations though when you are pressed by a timer there really isn't a really good reason to do it.

Nah there are instances where swapping my single hit moves on monk like dragon kick this guy, twin snakes that guy, AOE them all. The reason I split like that is so the tank can hold hate on all mobs easier, and the AOE'ing SMN or BRD or w/e do more dPS cuz I'm not focusing them down. If I hit one target with dragon kick and twin snakes then AOE, my personal dPS goes up, but party dPS goes down if I'm teamed with a job that AoE's good.

unless someone is undergeared or someone doesn't know what they are doing, you should be maximizing AOE damage.

if for some reason the pull is not conducive to AOEing, like in certain parts of the Vault with 2 big guys everybody should try to maximize their DoT abilities.

if you have 2 NINs or 2 MNKs you shouldn't split, if you have a DRG and BRD/MCH you shouldn't split. if you have BRD SMN both should DoT both.

there's no universal formula, people should know their jobs and be familiar enough with other jobs to produce maximum synergy.

There is no real difference if both focus 1 down vs split . But splitting while doing Aoe and multi dotting is better than both. What really should happen in combat with 2 enemies is the dps should dot both and spread to maximize the dot ticks. Let's say it's like you examples and 2 enemies will die in 30 seconds (preferably longer cause I wouldn't use tod in a 30 encounter) , as a monk, I'll demolish one, touch of death the other, then switch back to the other for the other single target skills and demo the other before once again returning to the first mob. The switching gives the dots time to fully (or close to it) tick which on monk is the difference between using a 180 potency skill and a 350 potency skill.
Sometimes killing 1 thing faster is slower overall if you can't let the stronger dots tick for a certain length

As others have stated, the benefits of focus firing usually revolve around lowering incoming tank damage, as well as reducing the number of AOEs and such that can result in party damage/mistakes.