W2W pulls or...?

Does it matter if you W2W pull or not? I usually don't and a dps decided to go nuts and tell me how I'm wasting everyone's time because I don't do it on my first run of a dungeon (and the healer was struggling to heal the extra mobs that dps would pull over to me).

What are your thoughts?

Depends on the Level range + certain dungeon pulls (typically Lv71 run to 2nd boss and Lv81 run to 3rd boss are considered spicy). Not all jobs have AOE attacks obtained equally before Lv50, but at Lv50+ W2W is fairly standard to do as tank.

If a healer or DPS are pulling extra mobs to you, that means you should pull more. If you die despite using defensive cooldowns spaced out (so you always have something running) and healers also having issues keeping you alive (as in, you died, horribly), thats when you can consider pulling less and telling your party so.

The difficulty is actually inversed as your level increases due to the way toolkits shake out. The game doesn't really let you w2w in more recent content though (more gating), but, in the end, it's up to the comfort of yourself and the healer to pull multiple packs. Like the above post mentioned, feel it out and if things go sour you can pull back.

I wall to wall pulled the final story dungeon which is an expert dungeon btw..... with the NPCs. If real players can't do it, they are probably very very bad at the game or severely under geared.

Kind of.
You're meant to pull the packs, do your 60s burst on this pack and around 40 to 60s later depending on skill and comp, you've reached next pack and redo a 60s burst.

If you do pack per pack you'll most likely kill it faster then arrive empty at the next pack.
There's also 2/3 monsters single pack and some jobs AoE rotation needs more than that.

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Originally Posted by Gryph0n

Does it matter if you W2W pull or not? I usually don't and a dps decided to go nuts and tell me how I'm wasting everyone's time because I don't do it on my first run of a dungeon (and the healer was struggling to heal the extra mobs that dps would pull over to me).

What are your thoughts?

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Some people always insist on W2W pulls even if they make no sense, and even if tank+healer can't handle it.
Other, more sensible, people don't mind if you are tactical-minded and just pull one group at a time. It won't add more than a minute or two to the total run time anyway.

You should wall to wall after 50, in ARR duties generally their less limits on what can be pulled, dungeons beyond that you will be walled off at 2-3 packs. In ARR dungeons it can be very hard to know how much is too much, so I'd start with 2 packs and go higher or lower based on how comfortable you feel.

My general rule of thumb is even if you're worried about messing up a pull it's good to know your limits rather then be worried about pulling more then 1 pack at a time, I feel it's a healthy mind set to pull as much as you can, if you wipe you can slow down ect. It's really good to get used to big pulls.

while pulling one pack at a time is "safer" it slows down the pace, getting used to one pack at a time will slow down players some will resort to pulling themselves others will just accept it might be slower, but generally a party is happy when you try to pull more then one pack.

This comes from someone who was very scared to wall to wall when i started out, but I've realised that i can handle it after getting used to it over time (now i find it's way too easy and i wish i could pull more), take your time to learn but also don't be afraid to pull more it's alright if a wipe happens.

Always do it, if you fail go at it again. You'll eventually get comfortable with it.

I don't understand why the other posts make something so easy sound complicated.

It's preferred but if you're not comfortable with it, you don't have to. It's not prolonging the dungeon by THAT much.

You literally press the exact same buttons if you pull a single pack or wall to wall. So you might as well wall to wall in Post-ARR dungeons and be a good tank.

Please do, being a DPS or a healer feels incredibly lame on single pulls, it's barely a gain to AoE on 3 enemies. Much more fun to AoE a whole bunch at the same time, and if you know how to rotate your mitigation properly, healer shouldn't struggle to keep you alive. If you're good, even a cure 1 spammer can keep up, and you don't get good by single pulling.

you go as it please you to be honest big or small it is up to you no one should tell you how to play that they like it or not. Remember your fun come first and you probably work a full time job and have a other duties out of game too.

don't stress yourself and just enjoy your time if people tell you otherwise that's just plain normalized toxicity and people often encourage it too sadly.

So enjoy playing as the way you desire

You should always do big pulls as a tank.
Your job doesn't change if you do single pulls and W2W.
You still do your AoE rotation the exact same.
You should still be using mitigation the exact same.
Nothing changes.

Given how much self heal tanks have now, the healer's skill shouldn't matter either.
Unless you're a DRK, then you're kinda reliant on the healer.

See how much you and your healer can handle, and how quickly the DPS kill the packs. It doesn't make sense to do big pulls if your DPS take forever to kill them and your healer is low mana from healing and nuking more. It also doesn't make sense to pull 3 mobs at a time if you have AOE monsters with you who kill everything in seconds.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

You should always do big pulls as a tank.
Your job doesn't change if you do single pulls and W2W.
You still do your AoE rotation the exact same.
You should still be using mitigation the exact same.
Nothing changes.

Given how much self heal tanks have now, the healer's skill shouldn't matter either.
Unless you're a DRK, then you're kinda reliant on the healer.

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While I agree with what you said.... again.... I W2W pulled the final story dungeon which is an expert as a dark with the NPC's and never died. If the NPC's can do it but your player group can't..... Well either the tank or healer is just god awful and doesn't know how to play, one or both are woefully under geared, or some combination of all of the above is happening. Square Enix knows how people play the dungeons, W2W is the expectation from a design perspective, hence why even the NPC's can do it with a geared and decently enough skilled tank. Even if the tank is playing Dark Knight.

Yes, you should W2W pull. There's maybe 1 dungeon where that is not advisable and that's only for one specific pull of mobs, and it's a lower level one. Use your mits.

W2W is just the normal now a days, back then when we were all noobs, sure. But this game is so easy as a tank you're pressing 2 buttons as you watch your defensive tick down... If you find it difficult to keep an eye on your status buff bar while chaining defensives, you might want to practice doing so outside of dungeons with fates or perhaps other high level mobs.

Also a lot of tank players I see whenever I DPS or Heal in dungeons they don't know you can use arms length as a defensive. Everyone ought to be teaching their friends and guildmates about this information.

Applying reprisal or arms length (if you have a white mage) after they've finished chain stunning with holy is another excellent tip to provide tanks. If you notice them repeating glare on a single mob, simply play as you typically would.

W2W.
Dungeon design in this game is boring so getting through the trash to the only fun part of the dungeons is why W2W is standard.
Games literally designed this way now so just do it. Probably should go back and change ARR to promote this too.

Only criterion has interesting trash mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Gryph0n

Does it matter if you W2W pull or not? I usually don't and a dps decided to go nuts and tell me how I'm wasting everyone's time because I don't do it on my first run of a dungeon (and the healer was struggling to heal the extra mobs that dps would pull over to me).

What are your thoughts?

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There are some dungeons in the lower level range where wall to wall pull might be indeed difficult, because the lack of abilities or gear makes them very difficult, but in general, if you don't wall to wall pull, you are wasting everyones time.

Since you said that it was your first run of a dungeon I get why you would feel a bit apprehensive to be doing larger pulls. A lot of people have already touched on the nuisances of of proper mitigation, it’s cooperative effort to clear a dungeon, how some jobs play awkwardly with fewer available mobs.

I tend to have a bit of tankiety in dungeons (I prefer raid/trial settings), I always make it an effort to first say that I”m new to tanking an instance, fortunately for me most people would be understanding. Sometimes its just the basic communication with the healer to see if they’re alright with larger pulls, other parts is understanding the toolkits of the other jobs in your party and what they have available at their current level.

On the matter of W2W, one of the benefits to it, aside from time, would be having the available mitigation. It’s better for cycling your defensive cooldowns. With mot cool downs ranging from 90 to 120sec, chances are if you pull pack by pack your cool downs wouldn’t be available by the next pack.

Something that I’ve been seeing with this expansion is that party mitigation plays a role such as DNC’s Samba. Then some tank skills that aren’t being used as often as they should such as Arm’s Length which applies a Slow Debuff to enemies. The fewer the hits, the less damage.

Playing it safe can only get you so far, sometimes you’d have to ask yourself “what more can I do” to create a better experience for yourself and the party you’re venturing with.

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Originally Posted by Gryph0n

Does it matter if you W2W pull or not? I usually don't and a dps decided to go nuts and tell me how I'm wasting everyone's time because I don't do it on my first run of a dungeon (and the healer was struggling to heal the extra mobs that dps would pull over to me).

What are your thoughts?

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Not against you or anyone who doesn't W2W at all.
But if you don't, i'll just leave. I have few time to do my roulette and such. So I like to go fast. If it won't, i'll just take the penalty and do something else more productive than single packs.
Besides, I hate single pack for my rotation/cooldown/ressources managment.
And I just find it extremely boring as well.

There's generally no reason not to try! If you're super low level and nobody has AoE it doesn't matter much, but once everyone has AoE, just try! It's WAY more fun for the healer and very satisfying for the DPS. If you die, that's okay! You never know until you try.

not doing W2W on a first dungeon run is perfectly reasonable

I wouldn’t call a tank out if they decided not to Wall to Wall pull, but as a healer I have to admit I let out a sigh when the tank does single pulls, because it leaves literally nothing for me to do except hit the same button for the vast majority of the dungeon.

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Originally Posted by EponaTBHSMH

not doing W2W on a first dungeon run is perfectly reasonable

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Why? The trash pulls are the same in every dungeon.