Tanking habits

[Maduro]

If you are talking about groups without a BLM (sorry, but large pulls with BLM are almost always worth it), then I think it comes down to the healer. If the healer is throwing out some DPS (Holy for WHM/DoTs for SCH), then it's worth it to do smaller pulls. If the healer is just going to heal, there is no reason to not go for bigger pulls.

[Luvbunny]

The best way is to program that mob will hit three times harder with anything over 4. So this will make sure that any mass pull will wipe party within seconds

[Symbiant]

out of the 100s of dungeons I've done and apart from main scenario dungeons I've never seen a tank get yelled out for pulling normal size.

Well then you have just gotten lucky. I always look at group composition and gear prior to running a dungeon. Depending on the what I see I will give options of pulls. "Normal pulls" , "Large Pulls" or "Giant Pulls". Not all groups get all 3 options if I don't think they can do it. So basically I give them the options but, I have been yelled at plenty of times for refusing to pull large groups when they have crap composition and crap gear.

Either way they way I look at it is if you don't like the way the tanks are then you need to tank. I can go on all day about bad dps / healers as well. When I get tired of bad dps/healers, I play different class my self since I have the majority of the classes to 50 and very well geared.

People always want know why dps have such huge wait times... your post is a perfect example of why. Tanks / Healers get sick of loud mouth dps and so they stop playing said class because of it. Or others do not play Healer / Tank because of the constant attacks on the two classes.

So let us not get into a war about who, what, when, why and how. Just sum it up to this.

No one is more entitled then the other when it comes to the game we play. We all come to play for our own reason and we each have different views of what is fun and what is not fun.
We also have different play styles.

So when it comes to a player choosing who is going to have fun who do you thinks going to win? That's right the person behind the keyboard and not the other 3 / 7 / 23.

Play the class or keep it to your self imo.

Peace

[Sadana]

I main BLM and I don't like entire room pulls. :/ Even with Quelling Strikes, I'm going to end up pulling hate and it's annoying. Only time I really don't mind is if we have BLM/BLM/WHM or BLM/BRD/WHM or BLM/WHM/WHM in the party... then we just smoke everything and it's ridiculous. And only with people I know, not pugs. But when tanks EXPECT we want to do this or even pass the blame onto my class, I roll my eyes. <Thanks for the offer, but I have to pass>.

eta: Does it really hurt to CHECK with the party first? :/

[Maduro]

Thank you for saying this. I was waiting for someone to bring this up.

Actually this line of thinking is wrong. The times sololy depend on your group make up. I.e if you have 2BLMs in your group yes your correct.

However if you have 2 monks or 2 ninjas in your group then guess what. you will spend 1 min on each group of mob not 5. Why cos we do more dps single target . However if you mass pull we're so slow at it and run out of tp that it actually takes 6mins to kill the mobs where as if you took them in packs of 3 you would have done it in 2 mins.

don't bite of more than your group can chew.

I can't say anything about NIN because I haven't played it yet, but I slightly disagree on MNK, just for the GL stacks. If you lose your GL stacks between pulls, it lowers your DPS, so technically it would be better to have all of the mobs lined up and ready to punch.

[Alukah]

The best way is to program that mob will hit three times harder with anything over 4. So this will make sure that any mass pull will wipe party within seconds

Why? Some people do enjoy big pulls, I don't see why mechanics have to punish them.

The problem here isn't just people doing big pulls, it's tanks not being mindful of party composition or gear.

Thank you for saying this. I was waiting for someone to bring this up.

Actually this line of thinking is wrong. The times sololy depend on your group make up. I.e if you have 2BLMs in your group yes your correct.

However if you have 2 monks or 2 ninjas in your group then guess what. you will spend 1 min on each group of mob not 5. Why cos we do more dps single target . However if you mass pull we're so slow at it and run out of tp that it actually takes 6mins to kill the mobs where as if you took them in packs of 3 you would have done it in 2 mins.

don't bite of more than your group can chew.

This is false, both monks and ninjas have good AoEs, the problem with their AoEs is the high TP usage, but mobs should be dead before you use the extra TP from invigorate, unless one of the DPS is not buffing up.

[Ashkendor]

I'll check out the gear of the party, do a medium size pull at first to see how they handle it and gauge from there how I will handle the rest of the dungeon. In the newer ones this isn't as much of an issue since they gated sections behind mobs. Either way tanks get yelled at for pulling too big and the group cant handle it and its a wipe. They pull too small and party is in a hurry to do a speed run and are bored.

This. Actually, I usually queue with a premade (it's half of my raid static) but on the occasions that we queue with a partial, we always gear check the person that filled the spot in the party. Usually it's a healer. In that case, we know we have 113 PLD and two 113 BLM, but I always gear check the healer to see how much healing they can most likely keep up with. Ending up dead doesn't save anyone time.

I generally look at the gear of my teammates to see how big of a group of mobs I should be pulling. If you're well geared with some second coil gear, I trust that you can handle it. If you're a full ST/soldiery or half soldiery, I don't really trust you (this goes double for healers).

Pretty much this, though I'm not too picky about ScoB vs soldiery gear.

[Yshnal]

I want to attest that it's not just gear what you should be looking at, as gear doesn't play for you.

That's why the first thing that I do, too, after checking my team and getting buffs is doing a first small pull to gauge what the dps can do. If I see them able to deal with larger pulls, I go for it (even so, if I want to make an insane pull I ask first, as not everyone likes it... unless I go with my FC ).

Also, when some impatient healer or dps keeps asking me to pull more I do the opposite. I know that if the party wipes it will be my fault for pulling more than what we can swallow, so I'm the one that decides the pace. If they don't like it they're welcome to come to the roulette as tanks :P

[CrystalRainbow]

My wife has talked to me about this.

She almost always does a small pull for the 1st one and see how the party handles it and goes forth based on what she see.

However it's risk vs reward.

Do you do a big pull kill everything and gain 2 mins knowing if something goes wrong you would have been better off doing small steady pull without issue.

I personally like small steady pulls without issues, vs having someone rage quit.

[LineageRazor]

I've definitely had more complaints about small pulls than I have about large.

Aside from that, though, you said it yourself: Tanking small groups is boring for the tank. Perhaps DPSing large groups is boring for the DPS (I personally don't think so, but I tank more than I DPS). Since someone has to be bored, and I'm the tank, guess which choice I'm going to make? :P

There's also the relevant point that aoe spam (whether it's "boring" BRD one-button spam or awesome BLM Flare spam) is FASTER. It's the whole point of aoe in general; each attack deals less damage, but applies that damage across every mob. If the tank can control the mobs, and the healer can keep the tank alive, pulling big is more efficient over time than pulling small. The dungeon finishes sooner, and tank, healer, and dps alike can get on with other things.