Why do people still single target mobs when there are 3 or more?

[Elkya95]

Because some people have been traumatised by bad tanks not bothering to keep AOE hate in any sized pull. I will be a douche and AOE wether the tank wants to use their AOE skills or not. Usually not a problem on MNK with a demolish on 2 targets and a rockbreaker in between or the rockbreaker on more enemies. It is fun on SMN though to see the enemies go to orange hate before the tank realises he needs to hold hate.

[Alahra]

Because some people have been traumatised by bad tanks not bothering to keep AOE hate in any sized pull.

I've been working on BLM over the past few weeks (just hit 60 a couple days ago), and I had really forgotten (since I had largely stopped playing it as far back as 2.1) how little some tanks use their AoE threat abilities. I've taken to using a slightly less optimal AoE rotation just because I don't know if a given tank will be able to handle the full-powered one (and my BLM as of writing only has a 170 weapon—I don't know what it'll be like once I get a better one).

[TouchandFeel]

Most of the instances of this where I felt I needed to say something, like single targeting on pulls of 7+ mobs, it usually was the result of people not understanding basic things like cumulative effects and addition.

Quick recap of an actual conversation I had with a BRD in a EX Roul run.

Me: Could you please use AoE abilities on large packs of mobs, it will make the run go much faster and smoother.
BRD: I do more damage with single target.
Me: No you don't, not with groups of like 4 or more.
BRD: My single target abilities have a higher potency.
Me: (while face-palming irl) Slightly weaker hits against multiple targets adds up to more damage overall than a slightly stronger hit against a single target.
BRD: Whatever, I know how to play.
Me: Could you at least throw down fire arrows, those will do AoE damage and you can set and forget them.
BRD: I'll play how I want.

If this was just a one-off instance, I'd be fine, unfortunately I've had similar conversations more than I should ever have to.

[AskaRay]

Most of the instances of this where I felt I needed to say something, like single targeting on pulls of 7+ mobs, it usually was the result of people not understanding basic things like cumulative effects and addition.

Quick recap of an actual conversation I had with a BRD in a EX Roul run.

Me: Could you please use AoE abilities on large packs of mobs, it will make the run go much faster and smoother.
BRD: I do more damage with single target.
Me: No you don't, not with groups of like 4 or more.
BRD: My single target abilities have a higher potency.
Me: (while face-palming irl) Slightly weaker hits against multiple targets adds up to more damage overall than a slightly stronger hit against a single target.
BRD: Whatever, I know how to play.
Me: Could you at least throw down fire arrows, those will do AoE damage and you can set and forget them.
BRD: I'll play how I want.

Bad BRDs make me cringe so much

[CGMidlander]

Most of the instances of this where I felt I needed to say something, like single targeting on pulls of 7+ mobs, it usually was the result of people not understanding basic things like cumulative effects and addition.

Quick recap of an actual conversation I had with a BRD in a EX Roul run.

Me: Could you please use AoE abilities on large packs of mobs, it will make the run go much faster and smoother.
BRD: I do more damage with single target.
Me: No you don't, not with groups of like 4 or more.
BRD: My single target abilities have a higher potency.
Me: (while face-palming irl) Slightly weaker hits against multiple targets adds up to more damage overall than a slightly stronger hit against a single target.
BRD: Whatever, I know how to play.
Me: Could you at least throw down fire arrows, those will do AoE damage and you can set and forget them.
BRD: I'll play how I want.

Maybe he was doing more damage single target?
How would you know he was doing less? It's impossible without a parser.
The game's rotations are a complete black box and sensible rotations are not plausible for PS2 players like me and many other peepole.

/sarcasm

[Lone-wolfe-02]

I think the real reason especially with new players it's the resource cost and the lower potency that make them believe it isn't worth using.

[Alistaire]

As others have noted, AoE on 3 targets is often somewhat inefficient

People need to get past this. Efficiency is absolutely zero concern until you're nearly out of tp. Efficiency doesn't tell any job in this game not to aoe, it only tells them when they have to stop aoe'ing, and this thread isn't about people running out of tp and single-targetting, it's about the players that sit @ 900~ tp start to finish of every pull.

On that note I almost think them adding tp bars is a detriment due to the number of times I've noticed someone's not doing their job based on those bars. Except that of course it's better to know than not to know, and at least gives me someone to poke and go "what's up?" when figuring out who's getting carried.

[Alahra]

this thread isn't about people running out of tp and single-targetting

Actually, the OP simply asks why people don't AoE on 3 targets, with no qualifications. There are a number of reasons why people don't, though not all of them are good ones. I mentioned that sometimes it's better to save TP/Invigorate for the next large pull, as you get more bang for your buck out of that cooldown if you're hitting 5-8 targets at full speed than you do using Invigorate on the 3-4 targets before that pull and then running dry on the larger pack.

A good example of a situation like this would be the third pull in Vault, which has 8 or 9 enemies in it—the two pulls before that only have 4 or so (the second might have 5—my memory's foggy). Depending on kill speed (such as if you've got a BLM or SMN as the other DPS), your Invigorate may not be up again by the time the third pull rolls around if you use it on the first pack.